Process Indicators, Oh yes what a dilemma. My suggestions are one, take a stand, NO TOUCH UP OF PROCESS INDICATORS and two take the soldering irons away from the people doing the touch up. This has been a problem for over 40 years and we're still talking about it, can you believe it? Any additional heat applied to the board creates cumulative damage to the laminate, we know that, we've experienced that, and we've trained to that. What part of NO touchup don't they understand. Hope this helps. I know it gets me hot under the collar when I hear things like this and the inspectors are driving the quality, come on engineering do your jobs. Regards and thanks for allowing me to let off some steam. Leo Lambert -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Charles Caswell Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 9:06 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Process Indicators... Join the fight. I have been arguing this point for years. Just as bad are rejections for class 3 defects on class 2 product. Better than 90% of our class 2 will meet class 3 -----Original Message----- From: Daan Terstegge [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 2:35 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Process Indicators... Hi Steve, I agree with you 100% The description of process indicators, as written in the IPC-A610, says it all. No discussion possible. (hhmm, then why am I having so much discussion with our inspectors? hhmm.,...??) Best regards, Daan Terstegge PCB Assembly Department Thales Land & Joint Systems Tel +31(0)35 524 8297 Fax +31(0)35 524 8181 [log in to unmask] Unclassified Email >>> [log in to unmask] 11/02/04 02:01am >>> Hi All!! I've been getting into a number of debates about "Process Indicators" as described in the IPC-610...mostly with our inspectors. I know their hearts are in the right place, but it seems that many times they will reject the assemblies with "Process Indicators" back to our operators to touch them up, so that they look more like the "Target Condition", to be more cosmetically pleasing. I've tried to explain things as best I can, but find that sometimes our operators are touching up way more solder joints than they need too...they're being "trained", as it were, by our inspectors. The operators know that if something isn't "pretty" enough, it's going to come back to them...so they're putting more labor into product than they should. I'm trying to find some way, any way, to be able to show our inspectors that to touch-up something because it doesn't look like the target condition, doesn't mean one is making things any better...I understand that beauty is in the eye of beholder. There was some talk in the past about the Intermetallic Layer being thickened during subsequent reflow cycles, and causing fractures, but Werner said that he's never seen a failure because of a thick Intermetallic layer. Process Indicators may happen as spelled out in the -610, sometimes not only because of the assembly process, but because of the design, or other factors. I look at Process Indicators as a "Flag" to investigate whether or not the issues can be addressed and resolved properly, if they can't be resolved, then it's not a defect. Am I wrong about this? As always, TIA! -Steve Gregory- --------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------