Phil, Did you have a success in plating punched openings in FR4? If so, what's the trick of producing a smooth hole wall for acceptable plating quality? Some years ago, we abandoned the idea because of the poor hole finish and haloing. We ended up having plating nodules and voids all over the through-hole plating. Thanks, KK Chin Artesyn Technologies, Fremont, CA Phil Nutting <[log in to unmask]> on 06/19/2000 02:16:03 PM Please respond to "TechNet E-Mail Forum." <[log in to unmask]>; Please respond to Phil Nutting <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] cc: (bcc: KK Chin) Subject: Re: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Tom, The process of plating a hole does not care about the shape. The hole can be round, square, triangular, elliptical or a slot. It is a liquid process that is going to "stick" to whatever surface is presented. Any fab house should be able to plate any given hole. We regularly have slots which are being plated. Regards, Phil Nutting Manufacturing Engineer Kaiser Systems, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Martin [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 4:49 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Just curious Paul, Do you have access to PCB fabricators who can plate punched slots and holes? I heard of this being done on one occasion but would be pleasantly amazed to find out there is a fab house who's figured out how to do this on a regular basis. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks, Tom Martin Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 08:32:40 +1000 From: Paul Klasek <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: oval pin into oval hole MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- Or a die punch , with large volumes routing is rather slow and expensive, also the die can solve more intricate openings . Relatively easy to keep horizontal concave ground carbide tips sharp . paul -----Original Message----- From: Phil Nutting [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Saturday, 17 June 2000 4:57 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Richard, We have several boards that we had to design plated through slots for capacitors that either had large rectangular tabs or multiple wires going to the same hole. We used the same clearance rules that we normally would for standard round holes. Depending on your board vendor these slots might be created by drilling a series of holes or by routing. Hope this helps, Phil Nutting Manufacturing Engineer Kaiser Systems, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Hawkins [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 2:15 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] oval pin into oval hole Hello all, I am having trouble finding design specs for an oval component lead going into an oval hole. The component is an indictor that is about 25mm in diameter and the lead is made by soldering two 16ga wires together. The shape of the lead is more like a rectangle with a full radius at the short sides than an oval and the hole in the pcb is the same shape. My task is to evaluate a design, that is already in production, to see if it should be changed and make recommendations if so. However, I have not been able to find anything in my IPC manuals that approaches this situation. My question then, is what guidelines for layout should I use? Any help will be appreciated. Richard Hawkins ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ##############################################################