Charles,

     There's another simple system that's more accurate than the contact
measuring  system you speak of. It's made by Screen Manufacturing Technologies
a stencil manufacturerer....you may have heard of them. They may not be known
as Sceen Manufacturing Technologies anymore, they were bought by Alpha Metals
(the solder paste guys...).

      Anyways, they make a neat little unit that uses a depth measuring
100-power microscope that will give you +/- .005" accuracy. You place a PCB
with printed paste beneath the microscope that is mounted on a arm (so you can
measure at the center of boards), adjust the focus on the top of a pad that
doesn't have paste printed, zero the LCD display on the micrometer, then focus
the scope to the top surface of the printed paste. The distance that you have
to move the scope to bring the surface of the printed paste into focus is
tracked by the micrometer and displayed in tenths of a mil. It works in
principle the same as the units from Vision Engineering if you've ever seen
those, but not near as expensive. The last time I bought one it was only
$1,200...not too shabby huh?

                                                           -Steve Gregory-

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