Well, Steve I don't profess to know an awful lot about pwb manufacturing, but let me just point out that tech sales people are only so good at selling, products must sell themselves in order to survive in this industry. Most OEMs and CEMs need to qualify processes. We don't just buy products and bring them into our shops and hope for the best. We are required to completely test out everything to make absolutely, positively certain that the resulting product meets the specifications fully. We do our best to derive evaluation plans and follow them. Most of us have done this with immersion silver on our pwb's, and the pwb suppliers have also done likewise. And immersion silver has done very well, as far as I have been involved. And from what I see on the Technet, the same with others. As far as ENIG, well there is enough documented evidence that it is not always the best choice. And in certain cases, neither is immersion silver. As the respected Doug Pauls has pointed out (altogether now, gang), It Depends. I don't know anything about the cyanide and formaldehyde issues, so I cannot comment on that. I am sure other PWB vendors can, and will. I wonder why so many board fabricators are not having a problem offering IS if there are problems with the waste stream as you state. Did something happen such that your local controlling agency is deviating from state and federal guidelines? -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Hodge Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 2:46 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] RoHs board surface recommendations. I realize that tech sales people have done their job promoting immersion silver to end users. The people who bad-mouth ENIG have been sold a bill of goods. Cyanide is bad I know. I have a question for the effluent controlling agencies. Why is more Cyanide allowed in the stream than Silver? Our local controlling agency will not allow our company to even consider immersion silver. Companies that offer IS chemistry will not tell you this of course. More research? Yes, they have alot of lost time to make up. Formaldehyde going away? Then what? Back to the Blackhole. LOL --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------