45 Degree Wave Soldering

A rash of new products here at my company have designs with multi-pin connectors 90 out-of-phase (orientation)wiht respect to wave direction, which has lead to massive bridging (shorts) problems....

Does anyone still use the 45 Degree Pallet (a pallet which enables one to orient the PCB 45 degrees) approach to eliminating bridges? If yes, have you seen success in eliminating bridging?

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| A rash of new products here at my company have designs with multi-pin connectors 90 out-of-phase (orientation)wiht respect to wave direction, which has lead to massive bridging (shorts) problems.... | | Does anyone still use the 45 Degree Pallet (a pallet which enables one to orient the PCB 45 degrees) approach to eliminating bridges? If yes, have you seen success in eliminating bridging?

Hi there CK...

The last time I've been around any 45-degree waving was at NEPCON East the year before last when I worked for Zevatech. We always had at least 1-machine down on the TAC line there.

What we were building on the TAC line was a board that had a 25-mil, 100-pin QFP on the bottomside that we were waving...buhleeve it or not, it did pretty good!

We were using a 45-degree pallet for that...if that tells you anything. The success that we had wave soldering that QFP wasn't ONLY because of the 45-degree pallet, but it sure helped! There were a few other little "tricks" that had to be done to help things go as well as they did...

So in my humble opinion, I think it'll help ya' quite a bit...maybe not eliminate every last one of them, but I'm sure it'll help...

-Steve Gregory-

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| A rash of new products here at my company have designs with multi-pin connectors 90 out-of-phase (orientation)wiht respect to wave direction, which has lead to massive bridging (shorts) problems.... | | Does anyone still use the 45 Degree Pallet (a pallet which enables one to orient the PCB 45 degrees) approach to eliminating bridges? If yes, have you seen success in eliminating bridging? | C: A company out there makes wave solder machines that orient the PCB 45� to the wave. I don't think that you want to replace your WS machine, but they chatter about oblique soldering on the following link. I thought that you might get something from reading this. TTYL Dave F

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| A rash of new products here at my company have designs with multi-pin connectors 90 out-of-phase (orientation)wiht respect to wave direction, which has lead to massive bridging (shorts) problems.... | | Does anyone still use the 45 Degree Pallet (a pallet which enables one to orient the PCB 45 degrees) approach to eliminating bridges? If yes, have you seen success in eliminating bridging? | A company called Yakota 607-772-6700 makes the wave that I believe Dave F. is taling about. Don't know what wave soldering machine you have but maybe can retrofit with heated air knife. Air knife will blow off most bridges.

Good luck,

Chris | |

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Hi Dave!

Dat' be da same board we ran at NEPCON East in 97'! Ray Rua was running the TAC line then (his company usually runs the TAC line at almost all NEPCON shows).

A couple of things I wanted to point out on that GIF image that might be of interest to some people. Take a close look at the thieving pads that are laid-out for the QFP at each corner...pretty important if anyone ever tries to do something like that. Another thing that was critical that isn't so apparent in the picture was the form of the QFP leads.

The flatpack that we used there had a very short shoulder coming out from the package body before it did it's bend going down into the leg and foot...QFP's that have a longer shoulder than the one we used won't work, it'll bridge up around the body right on those shoulders (tried using a QFP that Topline gave us but it was a no-go).

This mostly was an exersize to show people that something like that CAN be done, but to tell you the truth I don't know if I would attempt to do something like that in production. There's so many things that have to be just right for it to work, not to mention the popcorning risks of a real QFP...

The SOIC just below the QFP has some interest thieving pads too, kinda' trianglar shaped...they worked REAL well too!

C-ya L8'er Gator!

-Steve Gregory-

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| A rash of new products here at my company have designs with multi-pin connectors 90 out-of-phase (orientation)wiht respect to wave direction, which has lead to massive bridging (shorts) problems.... | | Does anyone still use the 45 Degree Pallet (a pallet which enables one to orient the PCB 45 degrees) approach to eliminating bridges? If yes, have you seen success in eliminating bridging? | | | C.K. - Pallets will help, probably going to be hard to justify major retros to your machine based on one job. However, 45 degrees isn't always the magic number, you can get varying 'degrees' (ha ha, I made a funny) of success by changing the presentation angle fo the board. Rather than buying twelve different pallets to figure out which angle works best for this board, call Garland Service Company here in good 'ol Texas (www.gogsc.com). Though they don't have a picture on their web site, they make a mother/daughter pallet system that has a circular inner carrier that can be adjusted to any angle you need. It has angle marks on 2 degree increments so you can fine tune and document your ultimate settings. They also carry about anything else you might need in carriers, board stiffeners and replacement titanium fingers for your machine. Good luck....

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| A rash of new products here at my company have designs with multi-pin connectors 90 out-of-phase (orientation)wiht respect to wave direction, which has lead to massive bridging (shorts) problems.... | | Does anyone still use the 45 Degree Pallet (a pallet which enables one to orient the PCB 45 degrees) approach to eliminating bridges? If yes, have you seen success in eliminating bridging? | | I agree with Mike, 45 degrees might not be the optimal approach to the wave. We have a solder fixture product that lets you rotate the board every 5 degrees to find your best direction of flow in relation to bridging. Contact me off-line for further information or check us out at www.spprecision.com

Thanks,

Chad Haima S.P. Precision Int'l National Sales Manager 800-725-5388 |

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For as much as you can minimize bridging in these condition by changing board orientation, the only way to eliminate them may be to add debridging airknife tech to your system, or purchase a system that is fitted with this technology. We have been troubleshooting customers boards with these exact problems, and have found that they could get a decent older Hollis with this technology. Beats Electrovert prices by a longshot!

C. Taylor InnCon (603) 594 9495 | | | |

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| For as much as you can minimize bridging in these condition by changing board orientation, the only way to eliminate them may be to add debridging airknife tech to your system, or purchase a system that is fitted with this technology. We have been troubleshooting customers boards with these exact problems, and have found that they could get a decent older Hollis with this technology. Beats Electrovert prices by a longshot! | | C. Taylor | InnCon | (603) 594 9495 | | | | | WE have old (8 years) Hollis machine equipped with Air Knife for sale. Works like a charm. Never a problem with bridging. | | | |

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