hi, from the image you have posted, it appears that the silver finish has become tarnished (i will be very embarrassed if i find out that the finish is not silver). silver tarnishes readily in the presence of sulphur compounds (for example in smog, kraft paper, etc). these parts may need to be 'brightened' prior to soldering which would be a major bummer. phil -----Original Message----- From: Stephen R. Gregory [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 6:49 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Capacitor Fillets... Mornin' All! Well it's picture time again. We are running some boards this that uses a ceramic multi-layer capacitor from Nippon Chemi-Con. We've noticed that the fillets on these capacitors look different than what we've noticed before. See the picture at: http://www.driveway.com/share?sid=e25a88c4.8e904&name=Pictures You can see that the fillet seems to climb partially up the termination and then abruptly stop. The termination also has a sort of tarnished look to it. I went to Nippon Chemi-Con's web page and looked up the part, and they say the cap termination can be specified to be either silver or nickel barrier. I've always thought that most ceramic caps do have nickel barrier terminations, but then they would be finished with a tin/lead plating. Do you think that in this day of lead free (especially since Japan is really pushing for lead free electronics) that there's nothing but nickel on the terminations? And if that is the case, what would you think of this solder joint? Thanks! -Steve Gregory- ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d ############################################################## 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 1.8d ############################################################## 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 ##############################################################