Hello Technetters, I would like to request your help regarding step stencils; I never worked before with these of stencil so all recommendations would be really appreciated. We have a step-up stencil that has 3 thicknesses: 8, 6 and 5 mils. Most of the stencil is at 6 mils and there are some areas that are at 8 and at 5 mils. The problem that we have is that the paste thickness that we obtain on the 5 and 6 mils areas is around 8 mils… The stencil has step-down from 8 to 6 mils and from 6 to 5 mils . Here are my questions: 1) Which keep-out out distance we should have. is the rule of thumb of IPC-7525 correct ( 35 mils for each 1 mil step thickness)?. 2) Which type of stencil is recommended , electroform? 3) Do we need a special type of squeegee blades? 4) Presently we use step-up stencil, should we use step-down stencil? Thank you Dominic Boudreau ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 16.0 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 For additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------