Hi Jim We are running two reflow ovens, no nitrogen and no problems (lead and lead free). We only run nitrogen in our selective solder machine. At a previous employer we ran nitrogen, it helped with the process (RMA flux, and some times the parts were pretty old so any help to solderability was good). We did typically run air at that facility though and only ran nitrogen on boards with BGAs and where we knew things were difficult. The one funny product we had was a board where the pads for the caps were oversize, when we ran it with nitrogen we had a tombstone fest - a graveyard of tombstones. Run it with air and the tombstones went away. regards, Graham Collins Senior Process Engineer Sunsel Systems (902) 444-7867 ext 211 On 5/2/2014 2:50 PM, Jim West wrote: > Good Friday all, > > Wondering how many out there, using both lead and lead-free solder, are using nitrogen with your reflow process? At a previous factory, we did not use nitrogen as part of our reflow process and where I'm working today, we use Nitrogen on all our lines. I had success without nitrogen and we are having success with nitrogen. At the APEX show, I spoke with at least one reflow oven manufacture about their oven and what they feel about the use of nitrogen and they pretty much said they are selling less ovens with nitrogen. To the point of 90%+ of their ovens are sold without the nitrogen option. As most know, nitrogen is very expensive and I would like to justify not using nitrogen in the future, but I have an uphill climb due to my parent company suggesting we use nitrogen based on a policy created over 7 years ago. Based on our product mix, I'm of the opinion we don't need nitrogen. > > What are your thoughts on using nitrogen with the reflow process? > > Has anyone gone through the process of eliminating the use of nitrogen and had success afterwards? > > Thanks, > Jim > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. > For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] > ______________________________________________________________________ > ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________