SMART Group’s third lead-free colour guide will be launched shortly, over 25 pages and is of defect examples and causes designed to help managers, designers, engineers and operatives to solve these and other everyday problems.

Engineers have the unique opportunity to download a free soft copy of the existing Lead-Free Defect Guide and be the first to be updated on the latest version. To download your free SMART Group defect guide go to  http://www.smartgroup.org/leadfreedefectsguide

The previous defect guides have been so popular all our printed versions have been snapped up by process engineers so we have taken the opportunity to produce a further booklet covering wave, selective, reflow and manual soldering. It also features defects associated with conformal coating, PoP technology, cleaning and land grid array components.

The SMART Group has been at the heart of disseminating information on lead-free soldering for well over 10 years covering much of the research and development needed to implement the change. From industry experience we have seen that the defects encountered during and after implementation of lead-free soldering, have brought us a variety of new, and in some cases old, challenges.