One cannot decide anything without having seen the contacting construction. The fact that gold comes in contact with solder is not with necessity an issue in itself. The questions are instead : - how much of gold pin makes correct contact with female sleeve? - what is the distribution of spread solder? Are they all exactly same or do they differ much? - how is the sleeve designed ? - how is the microstructure of the two parts (roughness, asperity) ? - what is the contact pressure per unit? - what is the contact resistance in milliohms? - do the contacting parts move in use (vibrations etc) or are they mechanically secured ? - what kind of plating, hard or soft gold? - will the connector be frequenly unplugged? - what is the life expectancy for the board? A quite safe answer can't be given until at least some of the questions above are evaluated. When working with reliability questions and failure reporting systems, I learned that problems like the announced are often more complicated than you thought at a first glance. Inge ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Crawford" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 8:05 PM Subject: Re: [TN] INTERPRETATION ON IPC-C-610 D SECTION 10.1 Jon, the reliability issue is that the solder, even though it is wiped smooth, oxidizes so much faster than gold contacts, and you'll end up with an open or intermittent connection. Jack Jack Crawford, IOM IPC Director Certification and Assembly Technology [log in to unmask] 847-597-2893 FAX 847-615-5693 3000 Lakeside Drive, Suite 309 S Bannockburn, IL, 60015 -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Roberts, Jon (SA-1) Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 2:05 PM To: Listserv Technet Subject: [TN] INTERPRETATION ON IPC-C-610 D SECTION 10.1 I have had two responses and one suggested I post the following information on reasons for asking the first questions. We have an issue on a SMT connector on a Rigid board part of a Flex PWB that solder wicks up inside the female contacts and causes mating issues. But if the mating connector is mated several times it causes the solder in female to distort to fit the male pin end and then it seems to fit. We are concern that the solder is touching the gold male pin at the end and wanted to know does that violate 10.1 and can it cause reliability issues later. 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