Technetters, I sent this out last week during a period of nasty weather across the country, and of course, got limited responses. I'm trying it again, as this is quite important. Please help me if you can. Thanks! Leland -----Original Message----- From: Leland Woodall Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 2:40 PM To: 'TechNet E-Mail Forum' Subject: Automated Solder Paste Inspection - Best Practices Request Everyone, We have automated solder paste inspection machines immediately following each of our screen printers. These all check for volume, height, and pad coverage. We run only lead-free products, and also have a requirement that disallows any wiping or cleaning of a misprinted board. I'm looking for folks running a similar operation that can give me some recommendations on how they manage this process. How many bridges do you allow? How do you handle insufficients or inadequate pad coverage? Insufficient paste volume bothers me, as I'm always afraid our post-reflow AOI process will not detect the condition. I also hate to scrap a board that has only a couple of pads with low or no solder. Any suggestions on how we can minimize scrap but ensure we have no escapes? Do we write down the effected pads, mark the board, place the parts, and capture it after the oven? How could one reliably manage this? Your comments are sincerely appreciated. Stay warm! Leland Woodall --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------