Frank There is no definitive criteria established in the acceptance standard IPC-A-610 other than the statement that "High temperature solders may have a dull appearance." The specific alloy you mention has been used like that, since I was a youngster (that's a while ago) in production of electronic products. Other than surface appearance, wetting criteria and contact angles have remained consistent with other common solders containing lead over the years with good results. We are in the process of looking at a new revision for IPC-A-610 (D) and if you can provide any input, including illustrations and/or test results, we would be very interested in considering them. The effort will start later this month. Bright and shiny went out some time ago (80s) and there was a significant effort to reflect that in the standards, including the defunct Military standards. The surface appearance is often a training issue in recognizing a normal appearance of the alloy used. On the "lead free" side, some of the alloys that I have worked with have an improved (shiny) appearance over Tin Lead. So "lead free" may not be an effective grouping. Maybe something like "other solder alloys". Mel Parrish Soldering Technology International Madison, AL 256 705 5530 256 705 5538 Fax [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Frank Parra Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 7:34 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] inspection of Lead Free Solder With the electronic industry going more and more to lead free solder, inspection/acceptance criteria on lead free solder has not been defined (or if it has, I have not run across it yet). Our company is leaning to Sn96.3/Ag3.7. I have established internal acceptance criteria but am looking for some industry criteria to use. Lead free solder does not have the same appearance as does tin/lead solder, so the old "shiny and smooth" critera cannot apply. Does anyone have any insight as to the criteria that needs to be applied? Has the inspection/acceptance criteria been reviewed and established? Is someone meeting and establishing this criteria? Who from industry is part of this committee? Thank you, Frank Parra Q.A. Manager Raltron Electronics ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------