One thing to look at is the volume of PCB's run thru the Wave solder. We use on the average of about 2000 lb's of solder per month per machine (Electovert Ultrapak). We run on an average about 70,000 board per Month , Because of the amount of new solder being introduced into the pot contamination usually is not an issue (last pot change was about 2 years ago. The frequency of the Tesing of your solder pot could also be moved up, say if you are testing every 3 mo. then bump it up to once month or so. Hope this helps you ERic Bernal Process Engineer at Pragmatech, Sunnyvale, Ca [log in to unmask] ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: solubility of gold into solder pot from Ni-Au board Author: [log in to unmask] at ~INTERNET Date: 8/29/95 10:03 AM Received: by ccmail Received: from netcomsv by pragma.com (UUPC/extended 1.11) with UUCP; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 10:03:17 PDT Received: from miso.wwa.com by netcomsv.netcom.com with SMTP (8.6.12/SMI-4.1) id JAA25435; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 09:36:12 -0700 Resent-Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 09:36:12 -0700 Received: from ipc by miso.wwa.com with uucp (Smail3.1.28.1 #8) id m0snTdg-000Fd1C; Tue, 29 Aug 95 11:35 CDT Received: by ipchq.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #2) id m0snSrj-0000GmC; Tue, 29 Aug 95 10:46 CDT Old-Return-Path: <miso!halsp.hitachi.com!ahlerta> Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 08:35:26 PST From: [log in to unmask] X-ccAdmin: postmaster@netcomsv Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Cc: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] Subject: solubility of gold into solder pot from Ni-Au board Resent-Message-ID: <"WrP9R.0.G2E.APpGm"@ipc> Resent-From: [log in to unmask] X-ccAdmin: postmaster@netcomsv X-Mailing-List: <[log in to unmask]> archive/latest/986 X-Loop: [log in to unmask] Precedence: list Resent-Sender: [log in to unmask] We are studying use of Ni-Au plated circuit boards. One concern which arose is that some of the gold will be dissolved as the board crosses the solder wave and gradually contaminate the pot. Is this a valid concern? We have never had a copper contamination problem even though we solder many copper boards. We use a dual wave solder and RMA flux. Thanks, Allen Ahlert [log in to unmask]