Good morning everyone. Today we have a situation where we have our "Lore and Legend" of business (or "that's the way we've always done it") versus what a vendor will supply. Now let my unscramble this for you. We make systems that use high voltage coils encapsulated in epoxy. Our practice for many years is to not accept any voids (that we could see on the surface) in the finished encapsulated item. Generally we can achieve this by pouring the epoxy into the mold while it is at roughing pressure or under low vacuum. If there was a void we never accepted the unit even if it was patched because of a concern about punch through because of a poor bond, dirt or other "conductive" gunk possible trapped under the patch. We won't go into the waste generated or process control here, that's a separate discussion. We now have a unit that is being potted by an outside vendor. One unit came in with a visibly patched void. We rejected it because of our undocumented culture of "no voids". The outside vendor says they will not guarantee void free potting. So now we can either eat the cost of this unit or use it. What is a generally accepted practice for encapsulation or potting regarding visible voids and patching? Do you flat out reject it or do you consider the application and the location of the void/patch? I'd appreciate your views as we will be meeting on this subject and I'd like to have some external opinions as reference when discussing the merits of accepting repaired voids. Thanks in advance, Phil Nutting --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------