I have a situation where there has been a small fire in a data center. There was no water involved in quenching the fire. *So how was the fire quenched? Halon? CO2? Chemicals? The equipment manufacturers are considering walking away from their maintenance agreement citing contamination levels in excess of 1.56 ug/cm2 based on ANSI J-STD-001 rev. B They have provided an ionograph reading of 3.6ug/cm2 of NaCL equivalent on a circuit board as evidence and various swabs of exterior surfaces on equipment cases - most in excess of this standard. *Wow, talk about smoke and mirrors (pun intended). These figures refer to a circuit assembly after it has been manufactured, not after it has been through a fire. It is a completely bogus use of the figure. Of course, the test itself is bogus, but thats another issue.... We have used IPC-TM-650 2.3.28 - Ionic analysis of circuit boards, ion chromotography method readings and recorded: Uninvolved Circuit board: 0.25 Chloride ug/cm2 Involved Circuit Board: 0.28 Chloride ug/ cm2 The J-STD is a post solder cleanliness standard. It is being used inappropriately as a benchmark in situations it was never designed for and for a methodology that has an ionic extraction yield greatly more efficient than the methodology cited in the standard. q1) Can anyone provide me with references to reliabilty studies of electronic equipment contaminated by fire combustion products. *It depends on what you consider to be a study. When I was at CSL, we did some analyses of burned boards and other boards near fires, trying to determine the source. We found that a fire tends to deposit chloride everywhere, and if the boards themselves burn, you get huge levels of bromide. Sulfate is also usually very high. Fortunately, unless the boards were heat damaged, you can probably run them through a simple rinsing (a run through the Omegameter would work) and drying process to get off the surface contamination. I think we published it as one of our Process Rx case studies. Give CSL a call a 765-457-8095 and they may be able to give you more information. q2) Any thoughts and insights into the appropriate/inappropriate use of the J-STD under these circumstances. *The use of the J-STD is inappropriate here, unless the contention is that your boards were dirty to start with and that caused the fire. But it does not sound like that from the stating of the problem. I am not aware of ANY IPC spec which would apply in this case. q3) Why am I finding such a great discrepancy in the reported results. *Because you may not be getting an apples to apples comparison. To my knowledge, only CSL and Delco have done much work setting standards for cleanliness by ion chromatography. Most vendors that have to service their own equipment pretty much figure that units will come back from the field contaminated and will need cleaning, so I doubt you will find any specs on it. In your particular situation, you will probably have to rely on experienced consultants in the area, rather than specifications. Doug Pauls Rockwell Collins --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------