Homebrew PCBs

Jan,

The solder plating really is about .0003" thick. Not much is needed 
and everyone kind of cheats on that. We rarely measured the final 
thickness of the solder which reminds me of a story.

My plant was visited once by a customer who was a military 
contractor. He brought along two Navy big shots who wanted to see 
what we were doing. They were in full uniform and  watching one of my 
guys pulling boards from the solder plating tank. When asked about 
checking thickness my plating guy said "ask the boss". 

They made some comment about mil spec thickness requirements and 
before I could say something to cover my ass my customer said "We've 
been dealing with these guys for years... they know what they're 
doing and refuse to lower their standards by meeting that MIL SPEC  
BULLSHIT". 

Well, I was somewhat shocked by this guys comments but he was going 
to retire in several months and could care less what anyone thought.
Then one Navy guy said "How do we know that this gentleman is even 
the boss"  My customer asked them "How many circuit board plants have 
you guys visited?". Both Big Brass Navy guys said this was their fist 
time. My customer said "Well, look at this knuckleheads pants... the 
boss at every circuit board plant has the least amount of acid holes 
in his britches" I was shocked and speechless but the Big Navy guys 
were laughing their asses off. We all started laughing at that point 
and I said lets go to lunch. 

While having lunch they told me all kinds of stories "off the record" 
some of which were almost unbelieveable. I asked the Big Shots how 
their planes were ever able to fly. They're response: "Each one of 
those planes is it's own miracle" !!!

Military contracting... lots of paper and mostly BS!!!!

Now thats a true story and it lets you know what really goes on in 
some of these high tech companies!  

Tom

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, JanRwl@A... wrote:
> In a message dated 12/11/2002 12:01:08 AM Central Standard Time, 
> twb8899@y... writes:
> 
> 
> > Let me clarify the plating issue. Everything past the activator 
stage 
> > is "electrolytic". In the acid copper plating tank it takes about 
30 
> > minutes to plate .001" of copper at 25 to 30 amps per square foot.
> > 
> 
> Gotcha!  Thanks for clarification.  I HAD originally realized 
he "activation" 
> was electroless, so it was easy to read confusion into all 
that.     
> 
> Yeah, it'd take some TIME to electroless plate even only 0.001" of 
Cu, now, 
> wouldn't it!  AND, I suspect that wouldn't even be very "nice", if 
it'd work 
> at all!
> 
> I wonder how the "solder plating" can look as thick as if it had 
been 
> "dipped", if it is only 3 tenths thick as you say???  Hmmm...
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]