Brad, I had the same problem with some SO16's when I was down on the TAC line at NEPCON this year. We were building the double-sided PCMCIA card in the flip line that was set-up there. I was using a Zevatech 740, usually we have no problems at all with reeled parts. But there was one reel of SO16's that was given to me, that I finally took off the machine it was giving me so many problems. I had two reels set-up so I could double-pick the parts, but I gave one reel back to Ray Rua and just picked the SO16's just using one head instead of two... I just got off the phone with a gentleman from Advanced Packaging Technologies here in San Jose (they make carrier tape, cover tape, reels, etc.) and I asked him about cover tape and some of the problems you and I are seeing. He said that there isn't any tape nowadays that doesn't have adhesive on it. Mostly there's two types, tapes that use pressure sensitive adhesive, and tapes that use heat activated adhesives...the latter is the most common type used. I asked him if it was possible for the peel-back force to increase from what it was when the components were first tape and reeled, and he said absolutely! It would depend on how the components were stored...inside a box in some stockrooms it can get pretty hot, and I can think of a thousand other places where it could get a tad "toasty". Like in the back of a UPS truck driving around Phoenix in the middle of summer, or sitting the reel on top of the reflow oven while you're waiting for the feeder on the machine to run out, etc., etc... I learned something today because of your post...thanks Brad!! -Stev e Gregory- ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC web site (http://jefry.ipc.org/forum.htm) for additional information. For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311 ################################################################