Been down this path many times. It has twist and turns not conducive to high speed driving. In the early days of enig, lots of black pad at every turn. Not trying to seem harsh, but I don't used suppliers who cannot prove they have this problem licked. If you look at Proto Engineering's web site you'll see they have a plant tour. About two thirds of the way through it, you'll see how they ensure black pad defects are eliminated. I use about 6 shops around the country. I have qualified them all to ensure all processes are effectively managed. I have only had one occurence of black pad with one of them in the early days of enig. The enig process is capable of being very well managed and over the past three years most everyone has caught on how to do it. So my answer to your question lies above. MoonMan --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------