Prepping Boards for Wave Soldering Selective soldering machines

Folk's,

Been asked / told by my boss to look into our board prepping area for wave soldering and find another way of doing it. Thing's I'm looking at are: PCB Breakout - do you do it before or after wave Connector's that need to be pressed in due to lock in's again when do you do it? Waht about thing's like power transformers or connectors that need to be rivited when do you do them. The the moment our place break's out the boards prior to wave soldering and fixes any press fit or lock in part's prior to the wave plus any riviting. This adds additional handlind and dramatically increases thing's like knocked off components due to handling. Concern's I have about riviting after wave is the stresses that may be introduced if your riviting in a part that is slightly unseated(but within spec). one of the Option's I guess is a Selective soldering machine, my biggest problem is that there isn't one that is approved by our corporation so I've got no bench mark, so if anyone's using ne then I'd be interested in your feed back on how it run's, downtime, fault's and niggles you have found. Ease of use and cost's yada yada. This is a big chance to move away from the "it's alway's been done like this" attitude and really open the box to some new and smarter way's of doing stuff so come on folk's relax on the SMTnet couch and tell me all about your earliest solective soldering memories......

JohnW

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