Hey Frank,

We're talking electrolytic and not electroless right?

Dendrites on the panel edges sound like copper burning but your folks have to know about that. Sounds like a random, process related cause. When are adds made? How often do you carbon treat? Do you use plating bags (where could the fibers be coming from)?

We had a new plating operator take it upon himself to "clean" plating bars with the old circulation filter once a week. We'd turn the agitation off and you'd see these white fuzzies floating in the tanks but I'd never heard of any getting plated. I've also heard of metal tools getting "lost" in the bottom of a tank and that contributing to weird plating but it showed on every batch.

Hans

AC-130 Gunship Motto: "You can run but you'll only die tired."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hans M. Hinners
Electronics Engineer
Warner Robins - Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC/LUGE)
226 Cochran Street
Robins AFB GA 31098-1622

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-----Original Message-----
From: Franklin D Asbell [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002 8:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Unusual plated 'stuff' on copper surface

This past January we began seeing unusual 'growths' ((for lack of better descriptive wording)) on the surface of panels after copper II, they are typically observed on one end of the panels, often only a couple panels per tankload exhibit this.

These 'growths' look like fine strands of metal of fabric fibers, they are clustered together like someone poor shavings there, and plated over them. If any of you recall pics of those bacteria found in that Mars asteroid from the Antarctic, they appear similar to that (not saying we have bacteria growing in our baths of course). Occasionally we see this out towards the center of panels, I don't believe we have ever seen all panels in a tankload exhibit this either. This condition is observed on one or two loads per day (out of about 20 - 30), some days not at all.

We started seeing this in one bath (of three in house) until recently it appeared in another bath simultaneously.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as our process engineers, lab techs, and suppliers are baffled.

Thanks,

Franklin D Asbell

Network Circuits, Inc.

Irving, Texas 75061