I have a preference of vacuum chamber by buehler due to the tilt stage and caresoul for ease of pouring and vacuum at the same time. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask] Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 2:44 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Microsectioning equipment... Hey Steve, I know it's going to be tough abandoning the Dremel / Xacto methods you've so nicely perfected, but alas ... time and technology move onward! A small vacuum chamber & pump are useful for getting the air out of those sections that tend to trap air, like vias, connectors, under BGAs, etc. The long pot life of the epoxies gives enough time to pump down those mounts. We use a Struers Epovac chamber and a pump I just got for a few hundred bucks out of the Grainger catalog. Most of our sections are done in acrylic which is great for most purposes, but it sets up too fast for evacuation. Depending upon the epoxy you choose, a small oven to cure it over and hour or two may be required. Diamond wheels are very good for grinding sections with ceramics. Shop around for these as they can be v-e-r-y expensive. Jeweler's supply houses are a good source for them. You'll want clips to hold sections in place in the cups. I prefer the plastic roll clips over the metal clips. The less metal I have to grind the better. Sometimes the adhesive-backed cardboard bases are useful too, but the adhesive residues can gum up things at the beginning, so I pass the section over a toss-away paper disk first before doing any grinding on a diamond disk. A standard variable-X stereo inspection scope w/good lighting mounted on a shelf right above the X/S equipment saves a lot of walking back and forth to somewhere else to see how the section is going. If you get this capital equipment P.O. through the bean counters I'd be willing to bet heavily that we're all going to get lotsa' chances to brush up on our cross-section analysis ... Good luck.! Bruce Tostevin Benchmark Electronics Hudson, NH -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Gregory Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 9:25 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Microsectioning equipment... Morning Everybody! As some of you might have read in my past posts, I don't have much capability (read: none) for microsectioning PCB's in-house, other than a Dremel tool and a desire to try and see things. Things look like they will possibly be changing in the future as far as our microsectiong needs...we will need to have at least a basic capability in-house to do a decent microsection. One of the things besides PCB sections that we will be looking at, is to be able to verify void-free underfill. I'd like to ask those of you that do microsections all the time for a favor. If you had to set-up a basic capability from scratch, what would be the minimum things that you like to have. I can fumble around and eventually get everything I need, but I thought; "Why re-invent the wheel?" So I thought I would ask you all... Just off the top of my head, these are some of the basic things of what I think I should have: 1. Diamond saw 2. Series of grinding/polishing wheels 3. Potting molds 4. Potting materials 5. High magnification microscope 6. ? If there are things that you would add to the list, please add them for me. If there are certain vendors of the things on the list that you feel are better than others, go ahead and list them as well. If you feel that you should respond off-line on those items, do that as well. I'm not trying to set-up a full blown failure analysis lab, just something that will give us the capability to spot some of the obvious problems from a microsection. Kind regards, -Steve Gregory- Senior Process Engineer LaBarge Incorporated Tulsa, Oklahoma (918) 459-2285 (918) 459-2350 FAX __________________________________________________________________ This message may contain information that is privileged and confidential to LaBarge, Inc. It is for use only by the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not copy, use or deliver this message to anyone. In such event, you should destroy the message and kindly notify the sender by reply e-mail. --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------