Jorge, you are on the money from our perspective too.... Adjusting the land pattern to Panasonic's recommendation (different that the IPC recommendation for those package sizes) solved the tombstoning problems for us. The "GX" style termination resolved the vast majority of our reflow problems. Unfortunately they only implemented that in the smaller Interestingly enough, a paste change created more problems with the film caps than the old stuff, so we went back to the old version. Now we're scurrying to find something else before it's discontinued. We seemed to better results from a tent profile, for what that's worth. Regards, Steve -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 1:12 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Panasonic Film Chip Capacitors and SMT Reflow Rich, Once in a while there is always somebody having problems with these components. Personally I've ran into problems with Panasonic plastic film caps a couple of times, the first time almost three years ago. The problems you are experimenting are very typical, I'd check four things: 1. Make sure the foot print matches what's recommended by Panasonic. These components are very light weight and tend to tombstone if foot print is not appropriate. 2. If I remember two to three years ago Panasonic released an "X" version of the component. This is suppose to be improved for SMT operation/Reflow process. You should look into it, maybe that by itself resolves your problem. 3. The version "B" of the plastic film caps. seem to have some sort of contamination on the leads that causes tombstoning. This contamination is either the dielectric bleeding out or a resin. The bottom line is whatever Panasonic did, the "X" version seems to solder better. 4. And the last recommendation. I'd implement a soak oven profile, that way you let the board reach a thermal equilibrium before liquiduos and thus eliminate/diminish the tombstoning or solder opens. We actually use this type of profile when we have tombstoning concerns. Hope this information is useful, Jorge Rodriguez Process Engineer Varian Electronics Manufacturing E-mail: [log in to unmask] ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------