Gary, I’ve heard that it can have an effect, but I’ve not seen anything that shows a profound difference. However, if you’re having open traces on every hand soldered board, then I would believe that you have some other issue going on. Have you verified that your opens are with your plated thru-holes? Also, I recommend this question to TechNet. William W. Gilman, CID 2827 Valley View Dr. Knoxville, TN 37917 ph. 865-524-8679 fax 865-524-8679 cell 865-368-0665 email:[log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bremer, Gary Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 10:43 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [DC] High Performance Electronic Design I am forwarding this question from one of the design engineers at work. We advertise we build class 3 products, but with all of our thick boards, we get open traces whenever a hand soldering operation is required. We just found out that one of our board vendors has been removing all the unused pads on the inner layers without out knowledge. The board type we generally use for our backplanes is type 3c per IPC-2222. Does getting rid of unused pads on all inner layers have any profound affect on the PHT barrel integrity especially with high layer count / thick circuit boards? Thanks for your help, Gary Bremer Manufacturing Engineer Phone (626) 449-3090 ext. 219