Have been wavesoldering rigidflex motherboards for seven years. They have proven tricky, to say the least. The most common failure is a phenomena we call fiber crystalization. It does not appear as a measle, craze, or delam, but as a single white fiber 0.003 wide or so, running for 0.030 to several inches long, through the pattern of the drilled holes for a daughterboard connector or across the pattern of round I/O connectors. The lines do not appear in undrilled areas, and not in low density areas. Our recipe calls for a 3-4 hour thermal preconditioning at 225 F. Unlike a bake, we must follow the precondtion within four hours with the soldering operation, even if the pwb is stored in a nitrogen chamber. Wavesoldering is done on 490-500 F solder pots with 200-220 F topside temp. Current contract specification is MIL-STD-2000A. The questions are: a. Has anyone seen this before? b. Has it been examined to determine the mechanism, such as rosin starvation? Would your explanation fit with our preconditioning? c. Has anyone tested it to determine the likelyhood that this propogates into dielectric breakdown or other sources of field failures? d. Is there something my pwb supplier should be doing differently? e. Is there a better proven receipe you are willing to share? Any and all help is much appreciated and will be reciprocated, Thanks again. Steve Steve Mikell Soldering & Cleaning Shaman SCI Systems, Plant 13-ms235 P.O.Box 1000 Huntsville, AL 35807 phone (205) 882-4800 x9174 fax (205) 882-4581 e-mail [log in to unmask]