With the greatest respect you should have this on your PCB specification and also the supplier should state the finish provided. Its common practice for the supplier to state on the package what the finish is. Often this is done to tell us the user how to handle the boards and not muck them up. Bev is spot on regarding XRF but you and many people can be mistaken between tin and silver finishes, me included. Due to a request on TechNet some time back for images of different finishes at different mags. I have created these but am still missing sample bare gold boards which are known to have very thin gold, plus gold which has corroded nickel under the gold which has lead to black pad. This will be stripped by myself to confirm and photograph. I wanted to make sure all the images are at the same magnification for the complete set. Email me off line if you have sample boards to suit, images will not help as the mag will not be the same. Many thanks Bob Willis 2 Fourth Ave, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 4HA England Tel: (44) 1245 351502 Fax: (44) 1245 496123 Mobile: 07860 775858 www.ASKbobwillis.com New Bob Willis "Printed Board Inspection & Quality Control Workshop" 24th March www.ASKbobwillis.com/faworkshops.pdf "Troubleshooting Your Assembly Yields Workshop" 25th March www.ASKbobwillis.com/faworkshops.pdf Book Bob's "Step by Step Failure Analysis Workshop" 22nd April www.ASKbobwillis.com/faworkshops.pdf -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Larry Dzaugis Sent: 13 January 2009 23:09 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Discrimanting Imersion Sn from Immersion Ag on PCB's We have several PCB's produced with Immersion Ag and Immersion Sn finish. Is there quick test to check the finish on the PCB to determine which finish it is? The Sn appears greyer than the Ag but the sample size is small. The drawings do call out the finish, looking for a way to verify which was shipped. --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------