Hi Nick, The hotter the soldering iron the faster the soldering operation. Contract assemblers get paid by the piece, ergo higher iron temperatures. The down side is, that these high manual soldering temperatures put the highest stresses into your PTH/PTV interconnect structures and can cause PTH/PTV barrel cracking and innerlayer interconnect separations (post separations); I have been an expert witness on a number of litigations resulting from this. I would recommend specing a lower soldering iron temperature to your contract assembler. Werner Engelmaier Engelmaier Associates, L.C. Electronic Packaging, Interconnection and Reliability Consulting 7 Jasmine Run Ormond Beach, FL 32174 USA Phone: 904-437-8747, Fax: 904-437-8737 E-mail: [log in to unmask] ################################################################ 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's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################