The benefits of board-wave optimization are significant, and call for a board-by-board assessment when determining wave solder guidelines. Direct measurement and management of what your boards are actually experiencing is the key. Using the same wave soldering machine settings for all boards can never produce optimal wave solder results across a range of assembly types, and reliance on wave machine settings does not ensure repeatability of board-wave interaction.

requires adjustments that are correlated with the actual defects on the board. Just recording the machine setting will not produce the results you want; neither will exclusive focus on your board-wave data. As we already know, wave machines are not necessarily repeatable. If they were we would have already found the right settings and have no defects or even spikes in defect rates.

Getting started is simple. It will only take literally a few minutes and produce information that will help you immediately:

1.) Set your wave solder machine as you always would for the board with which you are concerned.

2.) Once you have established board-to-wave parallelism, make note of your dwell time and immersion depth readings by using a device like the one described in this article.

3.) Run one of your boards and make note of its wave soldering quality.

4.) As a first step toward identifying your optimal dwell time, decrease your conveyor speed 0.75 feet per minute and run the device again to obtain your new dwell time reading.

5.) Run one of the same board types again and make note of its wave solder quality.

If your board quality improved that means that you have identified a dwell time that is superior to that at which your have been running your boards. You can now take dwell time readings every day prior to each run of this board type, to ensure that your wave machine is delivering the desired, superior experience to your boards. Hence, you use the data to assure and document BOTH repeatability AND waves solder optimization.

If your board quality became worse, then increase your conveyor speed and follow the same procedure. You will quickly identify your optimal board-wave interaction parameters. To assess the impact of immersion depths on your wave solder optimizer quality, vary your pump speed and otherwise perform the same procedure.

Another critical aspect to understand the process is process windows. All wave machines have their own normal range of data variance and repeatability. This can only be identified by repeating direct measurement of dwell time and immersion depth while the machine is kept at each setting you use. Understanding your wave machines? process windows for dwell time and immersion depth (and parallelism for that matter) will help you to optimize your wave solder process for each board you run.

If you are a high mix shop, start with your most common or most troublesome boards. For high volume, low mix operations, you have the opportunity to optimize each board you run. For both types of facilities, there is the added flexibility of reliably moving production of a particular board between different wave machines and even plant locations.

Numerous facilities have combined commercially available technology with simple procedures to optimize their boards? dwell times, control immersion depth and enjoy true repeatability of their wave solder process. For facilities which want to cut costs quickly and keep pace with industry norms for wave solder quality, the technology and procedures reported here are worth investigating.