Posted On: June 27th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Tin Pest in Medieval Culture

Folks, Readers may remember that I have had an interest in tin pest for some time. Tin pest can occur if nearly pure tin is exposed to cold temperatur...

Posted On: June 9th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Webinar on Voiding June 11, 9AM and 2PM EST

Folks, I will be presenting a workshop on “Understanding and Troubleshooting Voiding in Bottom Terminated Components (BTCs)." BTCs are one ...

Posted On: May 29th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Stencil Aperture Design for the Pin in Paste (PIP) Process

Peter writes, Dear Dr. Ron, I am trying to implement the Pin-in-Paste (PIP) process. The PWB is 63 mils thick, the component pin diameter is 47 mils, ...

Posted On: May 16th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

The Area Ratio for Odd Shaped Stencil Apertures

Joey writes: Dear Dr. Ron, I have a stencil aperture with an unusual shape. See Figure 1. How do I calculate the area ratio? The stencil thickness is ...

Posted On: April 30th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Autonomous Vehicles Even Farther Out in Time

Folks, Readers of this blog will remember that I have been a skeptic of self-driving cars emerging in the near term. I am even less sanguine today. A ...

Posted On: April 23rd, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Thixotropy: An Important Solder Paste Property

Folks, To the SMT process engineer, the second most important thixotropic material in their lives is solder paste. If solder paste was not thixotropic...

Posted On: March 31st, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Zarrow and Hall's "Board Talk" Becomes a Book

Dr. Ron introduces a new book to help electronics assembly process engineers to troubleshoot everyday assembly defects and challenges. ...

Posted On: February 28th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Statistically Significant versus Practically Significant in SMT Data Collection

When comparing data with a large sample size, you may find that although the data shows that one sample is STATISTICALLY significantly better, it may ...

Posted On: January 31st, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

The Current War: Director's Cut

What will you miss most if you didn't have electricity? How about lighting? Gallium nitride LED bulbs offer efficiency far beyond what Tesla and E...

Posted On: January 19th, 2020 | By: Dr. Ron Lasky

Artificial Intelligence Will Not Put Us all Out of Work

I have to admit, I was impressed when I read an article in Forbes magazine that showed a graph on computer speeds. It seems the iPhone 11 Pro is as fa...