Hi Leland! Yeah, thanks! After reading your post and the link, I'm surprised I haven't heard about this before. So like any curious person, I took one of our wrist straps and looked at it. Mind you, these aren't "Cheapo-depo" wrist straps, they're from 3M. But they are the elastic fabric ones. I was really surprised at what I saw: http://stevezeva.homestead.com/files/Wrist_Strap_Fibers.jpg Steve -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stadem, Richard D. Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 12:51 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Stainless Steel Contamination Question - Source Revealed Leland, Thanks for sharing this information. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Leland Woodall Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 12:23 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Stainless Steel Contamination Question - Source Revealed Time's up, folks! I'm beginning to understand how I overlooked this initially... Try an ESD wrist strap band with interwoven elastic, nylon, and stainless steel fibers. They're now all off the floor and have been replaced with solid, Speidel-style bands. After I found the source, we queried the internet again and associated metallic contamination with ESD wrist strap bands. One of the results returned was an interesting article at http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/llis/0301.html It seems that NASA identified a similar problem back in 1993. I'm now just wondering why these things are still being manufactured. I'd always been under the assumption (yep, I know that's bad) that the working contact area on these bands was the small metal plate located on the rear of the snap. I'd never examined one of these under high magnification. Low levels won't show you the true construction of the weave, as the stainless is quite small. If you're currently using these in your facilities I'd strongly suggest you consider a replacement. These things are downright dangerous! Please let me know if you have additional questions or if I can be of further help. Have a great day! Leland -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stadem, Richard D. Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 12:30 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Stainless Steel Contamination Question - Source Nailed! Was it a stainless steel brush being used to improve the Huntron's electrical probe contact? -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Leland Woodall Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 9:15 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Stainless Steel Contamination Question - Source Nailed! Everyone, After checking every filter, every transfer belt, every reflow oven, and most every square inch of the building, I was able to identify the source of the 10 micron stainless steel that has been giving us such a headache. Just in case anyone ever has the same problem, I thought I'd share the solution with our group. To refresh your memory, we were finding this stuff on top of components, and later inside our Huntron X-Y table inspection machines. We did everything but take a hatchet to the Huntrons, and there was nothing found (of course). While one of the Huntron machine's operator was gone to lunch, I decided to check an item she had left behind on her workstation. I took it to the lab, placed it beneath the microscope, and was astonished to find an identical match to our contamination woes. Before I let the cat out of the bag, does anyone want to venture a guess? Leland --------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------