I have just spent the last 2 hours going through the TechNet archives reading correspondance regarding to soldering to gold plated pads. I am now more confused then when I began. We have just finished reflowing and wave soldering our first gold plated pwb (mixed technology). It looks terrible. Talk about dull and grainy solder connections! The wave soldered connections look worse than the reflowed connections. The suggestions I've read in the archives include: Altering reflow profile (longer/hotter). SEM Analysis and microsection. (we are only building 5 CCA's at this time). "Quit looking at the solder joint appearance". A remedy of better preheat, slower conveyor speed and higher wave solder temperatures. Use 2% silver in your paste. Use more solder paste. Are these dull connections acceptable? What constitutes true gold embrittlement? Is gold embrittlement a legitimate defect? How are other companies dealing with gold plated pads. Do you need to change your process? ################################################################ 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 ################################################################