Hi Inge! Sorry for this soapbox but I would like to get your "definitions" tuned up a bit. The term "solderability" is the wettability of a metal surface to be wetted with a solder alloy. All metallic surfaces have a characteristic solderability value. The term "soldering-ability" is the ability to form a solder joint for a specified set of solder process parameters. You would conduct a solderability test (I hope per JSTD-002) to confirm that the component surfaces are wettable by solder under a specified set of parameters. You would conduct a soldering-ability test to confirm that a printed wiring assembly design in a specified soldering process parameter set with produce acceptable solder joints. The JSTD-002 committee runs into this "term confusion" all the time. Everyone should be able to run a solderability test on a test sample and get the same results since we all use the same test parameters/procedure. Everyone will most likely NOT get the same answer for a soldering-ability test because of a company's flux material, temperature capabilities, and equipment parameter differences. In your case below, you had good solderability (I am assuming you had good wetting) but terrible soldering-ability (gold embrittlement of the solder joints). Good luck on educating the internal customer. Dave Hillman Rockwell Collins [log in to unmask] Hernefjord Ingemar <[log in to unmask]> Sent by: TechNet <[log in to unmask]> 04/27/2007 07:25 AM Please respond to TechNet E-Mail Forum <[log in to unmask]>; Please respond to Hernefjord Ingemar <[log in to unmask]> To [log in to unmask] cc Subject Re: [TN] solderability testing Hi Steve and you all, Talking solderability. There are many ways. One of our design engineers wanted to know about the solderability of his new design. Kind of aluminum carriers for soldering on Teflon boards. I asked for the respective finish on the two parts. Board was IAg which looked acceptable. The aluminum part had Gold over Copper directly on the aluminum. No barrier, too much Gold. Hmmmm..I took one board full of soldered parts and knocked twice against the desk, then bent the board slightly. One third of the components dropped off with a pinging sound. A solderability test in practice. My internal customer looked little sad, but I felt this was best way to make him understand that he had to learn about plating. I use various such methods, and seldom use balance or even dip. Inge -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bev Christian Sent: den 25 april 2007 14:18 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] solderability testing Steve, You and others are in a different world than some of us other solder rats. Here parts are usually bought in advance so there is time to get new lots if things are bad. Now we are not doing incoming inspection on everything that comes in - just new components and components that come from an occasional disty (maybe they stored them under a tarp in Louisiana during Katrina for all I know!). We could not afford to have people touching a soldering iron to every circuit pack going down the line - we make thousands every day - not practical in our case. The problem is getting suppliers to believe wetting balance results! And as George said, the best test is soldering them on-line! And it is the ONLY test where you can get any real stats. Just a different perspective. Bev RIM -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Gregory Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 8:09 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] solderability testing Morning George! Very lucid answer! Most places I've worked at have been contract assembly companies, and most have not had the resources nor the trained people to conduct component solderability tests on everything. For one thing, most material that we receive is JIT and scheduled to be assembled on a board within just a few weeks if not days. Sometimes we HAVE to use material that may not surprise us to have solderability problems because of the availability of certain parts that are on our customers B.O.M.'s. We don't like to go to gray market component brokers, but sometimes we have to when you can't find the parts anywhere else and there's no other alternates. We always let our customers know about this when it happens and let them make the call...they usually tell us to get the parts wherever we can. So what do we do when have parts with marginal solderability? We deal with it, plain and simple. A lot of labor and soldering irons can do wonders. Sometimes when we've been burned in the past with certain parts we'll send them out for pre-tinning before assembly. Our customers expect us to do that. I would hate to think what would happen if we called one of our customers and told them that their ship schedule was going to slip because a part didn't pass a solderability test at receiving. -Steve Gregory- -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wenger, George M. Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 5:23 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] solderability testing Is there a perfect solderability test? Well let me Liang Yin, Is there a perfect solderability test? Well let me use Doug Paul's line and say "that depends". Having worked with Lee at the AT&T facility at Richmond and spent many years running the Bell Labs Engineering Research Center FMA Lab I've found the best solderability test to be the actual soldering process. I'm amazed how many times solder assembly engineers would come or send components to the lab with components they say "don't solder well" and would like me to test the solderability. My first comment is that they already tested the solderability when they tried to solder the component. If we were pressured into actually running a solderability test in the lab and they wanted an answer immediately we would run a Dip-&-Look solderability test like described by Greg Munie a week ago in another TN response. If the person we were doing the solderability test for had to have a quantifiable value we would run a wetting balance solderability test. If the person we were doing the solderability test for didn't believe the Dip-&-Look or wetting balance results because they were like wave soldering (i.e., components dipped into molten solder) and the components they were using were being assembled by reflow surface mount soldering than we'd run the test that Bev Christian recommends (i.e., simulated surface mount solderability test). The short answer is that the "Perfect Solderability Test" is the actually soldering process. Regards, George George M. Wenger Andrew Corporation Wireless Network Solutions Senior Principal FMA / Reliability Engineer 40 Technology Drive, Warren, NJ 07059 (908) 546-4531 [Office] (732) 309-8964 [Cell] -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Liang Yin Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 12:04 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] solderability testing Lee, Just follow up on your comment below, is there a perfect test for solderability? Thanks, Liang Yin Process Research Engineer Unovis-Solutions Binghamton, NY On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:39:46 -0400, Lee parker <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Ioan > >At the AT&T facility in Richmond, we did both. The results were nearly >always in close agreement. Since the dip and look test was far easier to >execute and could be performed by someone with less training, we elected to >use the dip and look procedure. Unfortunately, neither method is perfect. > >Best regards > >Lee > >J. Lee Parker, Ph.D. >JLP Consultants LLC >804 779 3389 > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Tempea, Ioan" <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 10:12 AM >Subject: [TN] solderability testing > > >Hi Technos, > >I need to setup a sort of solderability testing process. > >J-STD-002 is pretty clear, but I would like to know how are you set up for >the job. Mainly I would like to be able to make a decision on dip and look >OR wetting balance? >What kind of equipment are you using? >How to make the tests less of a black magic and more of a repeatable >process, with easy to interpret results? > >Thanks, > >Ioan > > >--------------------------------------------------- >Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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 15.0 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 15.0 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 ----------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------ This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged, proprietary, or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any unauthorized use of this email is prohibited. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------ [mf2] --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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 15.0 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- This transmission (including any attachments) may contain confidential information, privileged material (including material protected by the solicitor-client or other applicable privileges), or constitute non-public information. Any use of this information by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately reply to the sender and delete this information from your system. Use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this transmission by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful. --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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 15.0 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 15.0 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 -----------------------------------------------------