Rod: Pretty much, the standard oxide is the standard oxide, is the standard oxide, unless peel strength is the issue, which nobody seems to pay attention to any more. The main difference between various oxide chemistry is the pre-clean. Once you have a perfectly clean surface, the only other salient difference is the level of alkalinity, or conversely, buffering, which controls the oxide weight, and this does not change, but very slowly, as the oxide picks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and converts the Caustic to carbonate. The more buffering an oxide bath has, (and carbonate buffers), the lower the oxide weight, and the less thorough can the pink ring reducer work. And the normal pink ring reducer, DMAB, is a strange character, as it tends to either work real well, or not at all. I have seen panels where it worked on one side and not on the other. Go figure! Typically you will want at least 0.5 mg/square inch of Copper to insure that the DMAB does its job. Rudy Sedlak RD Chemical Company ############################################################## TechNet Mail List 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://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ##############################################################