Your 'take' is absolutely correct Ted.

 The specs are not intended to 'tie the hands' of the designer... but are a
guideline that the designers can use to know when they deviate from them
that there will be special handling required... which can reduce the number
of shops that are capable to handle their design needs or require special
tooling etc... Bottom line, your product needs to work in the space required
under the environmental conditions required... for the target price
needed... otherwise you don't get to play in that market.

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Tontis [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 9:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DC] IPC2221, IPC2222

I thought that Mil Specs were being replaced with the IPC Specs?

        My take on this is that the Spec is to help designers know what
the industry standard is, and offer them a base line to start off with.
By knowing and understanding the industry standard you can avoid
designing a product that can be more difficult or cost prohibitive to
manufacture.
        All designs have different needs and requirements, the trick is
to understand when breaking a design guideline you are sacrificing
something and that something needs to be less costly then the reason you
are breaking that guideline.

Ted

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail 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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------