| | Hello all, | | I have experienced broken ceramic SMT parts. Most of the time, | | we have found fractured inductive beads. Once in awhile, we find | | broken Ceramic Caps. All parts we use are 1206 form factors and | | we use tape and reel... | | Michael | Michael, | Your problem may be caused by your reflow profile. Make sure your ramp up doesn't exceed more than 2 degrees C per second. Any more than that may thermally shock the component and cause it to fail. Also, check your pickup and placement heights. Step through the program and make sure it doesn't happen in the chip shooter or what ever type of placement equipment you use. Another cause may be the support locations on your placement machines. Make sure the supports aren't located on top of the caps and thereby cracking them. | Good luck and best regards, | justin medernach One other area you may check is your test bays. I once had a case of broken ceramic components due to a bed of nails test bay fixture which would force warped PCB's flat for testing. When the warped boards were forced flat, the soldered endcaps were broken off of the ceramic bodies.
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