Greetingss.. Concerning parts opposite BGAs, we have used that method without any problems. It does, however lead to some heartburn for the Xray programmer (namely, me!). As far as the need for an Xray, it surely depends on the complexity of the panels. At our place, we have a number of panels with high joint counts (>20,000). We've found that our DPMs improved significantly after setting up the HP Xrays (A Series II 5DX, and an older 3DX), versus the old method of Visual inspection. We're seeing approximately 1.5 DPM after Xray, vs. 20 or 30 for visual. Considering the complexity of our panels, and the presence of BGAs, the Xrays machines have paid off for us. Running a simple panel, I don't think the Xray whould buy much for you, although I know a couple of places that use them for 100% inspection, even on smaller panels. Thanks, I enjoy the topics on this Forum.. Paul Quintin Xray Programming Data General Corp. ################################################################ 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 ################################################################