(chuckle) Gotta love those board brokers... We had a customer of ours move a certain product to an oversee's broker a few years ago. I learned about this after the fact when their Quality Manager called me with problems. Seems the boards they got would not power up as they should, they were missing traces and in a small quantity, a core was not there at all. Externally there were cut traces, damaged traces, and a whole slew of issues adverse to quality and function. He contacted me to see if there was any way we could repair the boards (after assembly) so he could meet deadlines. Well there was really no way we could. I did get from him they contacted the "supplier" who's only response was "did they have a test stamp on them" of which they did, then he said "then they passed test and any issues they are having were caused during assembly." He learned a valuable lesson about not researching suppliers, and especially purchasing them from the "discount on-line shops". We were really unable to help him with the majority of the boards, we did however replace most of them upon receiving their purchase order. They have been a valuable customer ever since. Franklin -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pete Houwen Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 2:46 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] looking for ENiG photos We put a lot of money and effort into material and finish selections in the RoHS chageover. We have strict specifications on our fabrication drawings. We have previously fully qualified 3 high volume and 2 prototype PCBs, and maintain them in a world wide AVL. but purchasing sees pennies............. This is just a proposed vendor - only sample quantites assembled, we haven't ordered anything yet (I hope). So far the proposed vendor has: claimed to be a fabricator, but is actually a broker fabricated at two shops, neither was included in the site visits or D&Bs switched the laminate we approved (twice) changed layer spacing used some alien plating material performed microsectioning and solder testing on a non-RoHS PCB, but shipped a completely different (hopefully RoHS) panel The other (passed) microsection showed innerlayer separation. Shipped PCBs with soldermask on pads. Best scenario is that this finally wakes purchasing up to what I've been telling them about buying boards in China. Worst case is - they buy these anyway. --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------