Steve, Can you comment on how you approach the fact that solder deposits can many at times be non-planar and that the size of each solder sphere is much greater than your system resolution..... How can you consistently and objectively measure solder paste optically, especially when dealing with BGA and uBGA prints....... After evaluating several measuring systems and actually owning one of the most popular machines in the market, I still revert to the good old z-height measuring scope for process development....to remove some of the subjectivity of the optical approach, I base my measurement from a pre-determined number of solder balls below the top most solder ball...so in case I have a solder peak or another non-planar anomaly, I can get a more consistent reading.... What do you do? Marcelo -----Original Message----- From: Stephen R. Gregory [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, June 04, 1998 9:42 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] AOI systems Hi Kathy! Ya' know, I've always kinda' cringed when I hear what it costs to measure solder paste height with some of these systems. But there's one system that I just bought, that I think falls more in line with what I consider to be a reasonable cost to measure solderpaste height with, it's called a SMarT Measure. It's a depth measuring microscope that operates in the same fashion as a Vision Engineering unit does. The unit I bought is the third one I've purchased, I've bought two others when I was with other companies. The unit costs a whopping $1,600 ! A little different than $34,000 huh? It's resolution is plus or minus .05-mil (.001mm) just as good as the big buck units. Sure, it don't have all the bells, whistles, and lasers, but it'll give you a way to measure your paste deposition that won't break the bank. You can buy 5 of these and still have money left over to get you that fancy-smancy AOI system you want...(GRIN) Check it out if ya' want, call (408) 562-2033 and tell them you're intrested in the Smart Measure Optical Z-Axis measurement system, they'll give you all the info you need. If you want, I have all the literature and I'll FAX it to ya' if you want to give me your number. -Steve Gregory- Practical Manufacturing Technologies (408) 734-2208 Ext.-8804 (408) 734-2244 FAX ################################################################ 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 technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################ ################################################################ 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 technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################