Hi Kate (and all)- I've written a number of articles about the ramp or tent profile and am clearly and advocate of it. It was made possible with the superior thermal transfer capability and performance of modern convection dominant (forced convection) reflow ovens. In the past year, I did a project for one of the major data tracker manufacturers where I characterized the parameters and specifications of the major solder pastes on the market (it was for a self-profiling methodology they the data tracker company was developing). I queried all the major solder paste manufacturers including AIM, Alpha, EFD, OMG, Kester, Indium, Multicore, Senju, Qualitek, among others and included most alloys offered and no-clean, RMA and OA flux formulations. Over 90% of the formulations have no problem at all with a ramp profile - i.e. no-soak. It was put there many years ago to accomodate the less efficient convection-IR oven methodology and people came to believe the soak was required. I am co-chairing (with Les Hymes) an IPC task group to re-define reflow parameters. A number of people Technetters would recognize (including Werner E) are members of this group. (Of course, being a comittee, my fear is that by the time we hammer out a spec, reflow will be obsolete). But in the meantime, I urge everyone who has notg yet tried it, to do some experimenting with the ramp profile. It is not for every application, but it will work and even improve most. Regards, Phil Zarrow ITM, Inc. Durham, NH USA www.ITM-SMT.com ############################################################## 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 ##############################################################