I showed the tin whisker nightmare photo's to an RF engineer I know here and she said that they had similar problems years ago in the Space applications field and the solved it by coating the surface with 'Q-Dope' a polystyrene/tolulene Q-Dope http://www.takefiveaudio.com/gc_q_dope.htm Material/Safety specs http://www.chess.cornell.edu/Safety/MSDS/polystyrene_Q_Dope.htm TIN Whisker Pictures http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/photos/waveguide/index.html Maybe the solution to TIN plating issues is some sort of coating or barrier to prevent whiskers? Could conformal coating stop the whiskers from forming after assembly? (Makes you wonder why we are even caving in to the pressure to change from tin/lead solder....) Bill Brooks - KG6VVP PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D.+, C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 e-mail:[log in to unmask] http://www.dtwc.com http://pcbwizards.com ------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------