I'm interested as to what type of probe you use to make good contact and ensure you have no risk of damaging the via? We avoid probing vias at all costs. The via is a potential reliability concern on a pcb and hitting it repeatedly with a steel probe doesn't seem sensible. Regards Rex Rex Waygood Technical Manager Hansatech EMS provides value manufacturing through engineering and quality Hansatech EMS Limited Benson Road Nuffield Industrial Estate Poole -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jack Olson Sent: 10 July 2009 18:20 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] ICT and SolderMask I'm wading into deeper water these days... (As a circuit board designer,) We have vias that can be used as test points that are 40mil pads with 13mil holes. Normally we would like mask to cover most of the pad but not the hole, so we have an 18mil aperture on the mask layer. Whenever these vias are USED as test points, we have to open up the mask and leave them fully exposed. The problem is, no matter how hard we try to generate test point data, during test fixture development they end up inserting a few more, moving them around, etc. which means we either have to modify the mask or leave ALL of them exposed. to minimize the possibility of solder shorts, we are discussing now to modify the mask instead of leaving them all open, preferably without having to change the board revision. Has anyone else had to deal with this situation? I would be interested to know if you are generating test point data, Is it really good enough? Or, Are they modifying it in production? If so, do they make an effort to get the TP changes back to you? the man with the mask, Jack --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------