David, Immersion gold comes only as pure (soft) gold. Electrolytic gold can come with various hardness specifications which arise from the amount of co-deposited cobalt and/or nickel in the deposit. Since immersion gold is a soft, thin deposit, I recommend a life test on the contacts to determine if the gold plating will have an acceptable life after a number of insertion/removal cycles from the device being powered and from the charger. Don Vischulis -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of David Harman Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 10:43 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] gold immersion process standards I have a question regarding gold immersion process standards. Is there a specification or suggestion I can use to spec out plating thickness and hardness of gold over nickel. The application is used for contacts on rechargeable batteries. Thanks David Harman --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e 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 or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/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 -----------------------------------------------------