Andre, What you probably have is referred to as "background plating". Areas of the soldermask actually catalized which allowed the nickel and gold to plate to the mask. There are several things that can cause this dilemma during the plating process-such as overheating or extended dwell time in the catalyst/palladium bath, poor rinsing after the catalyst bath prior to nickel plate, lack of sufficient stabilizer in the nickel bath which causes the nickel bath to become overactive. We installed the ENIG process about a year ago and had the same situation at one time. Tony Steinke AIT-Atlanta Inc. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andre Leclair" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 4:32 PM Subject: [TN] Gold Splashes on Solder Mask > We have recently received a batch of boards from the PCB House which had > gold in verious places on the soldermask.. Has anyone seen this before? > How much/what should we be conserned about ? A few of the boards are > definate rejects due to electrical clearance violations. > The boards were supposed to be Hasel. > > Thanks > Andre > > --------------------------------------------------- > 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 > ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------