Pick, Place, Podcast
How New Solder Products Are Developed w/ AIM Solder Content Marketing Specialist, Gayle Towell
Welcome to the first episode of 2024 (which was recorded in 2023)! In today's show we're joined by AIM Solder's Content Marketing Specialist, Gayle Towell.
AIM is a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry with manufacturing, distribution, and support facilities located throughout North and South America, EMEA, and Asia.
Gayle helps to walks us through topics like what exactly a soldering company like AIM does, how they make their products, who buys it, how they decide what product to design next, and more.
pickplacepodcast.com
Welcome to the first episode of 2024 (which was recorded in 2023)! In today's show we're joined by AIM Solder's Content Marketing Specialist, Gayle Towell.
AIM is a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry with manufacturing, distribution, and support facilities located throughout North and South America, EMEA, and Asia.
Gayle helps to walks us through topics like what exactly a soldering company like AIM does, how they make their products, who buys it, how they decide what product to design next, and more.
pickplacepodcast.com
Welcome to the Pick Place podcast, a show where we talk about electronics manufacturing and everything related to getting a circuit board into this whole world. This is Chris Denny with Worthington.
Melissa:And this is Melissa Hough with CircuitHub.
Chris:keep trying to mix it up on you.
Melissa:Yeah. Sometimes just getting rid of the whole intro.
Chris:Altogether. It's it's bad. It's I've said this, what, seventy times now, and I I still don't even have it memorized. I've said it so many times, and I've listened to it so many times, and I still won't have it memorized.
Melissa:one of these days.
Chris:of these days, I should be able to do it. How's things been?
Melissa:Pretty good. Pretty good. How about you? Busy?
Chris:Yeah. Very busy as usual. Very busy. We're doing a record month, which is exciting. Growth is good. And hiring, that's going well. Getting some really awesome candidates. And Got the sales team out here, got to meet with them, got some production engineers we got to meet with kind of, like, setting ourselves up for the future and hoping to hoping for big success. Speaking of which, for the future, I think I had mentioned on the show a while back that we're looking to sell some pick and place equipment.
Melissa:yeah. Yeah.
Chris:It that's looking very likely. So we will be an all Fuji manufacturer pretty soon next three to six months, I'm assuming. These things take time. But that'll be a relief. When you're trying to operate on two different platforms, it's quite a challenge for a manufacturer, so having just one platform will be very nice. Very nice. Lot less headaches. As it is today, you know, our one older machine, we just, a lot of times, just most days don't use it. Whereas if we had, If we had all Fuji equipment, we could easily just sling the job from one machine to the other and and keep things moving. But yeah. We thank our customers for being patient with us. We're a little bit behind, not too far behind. Most jobs are shipping, like, most jobs are shipping on time. A few jobs are shipping, like, a day late. Maybe a couple of days late at most. But yeah, not doing too bad. We get we just get slammed with orders at the end of the year. I I'm not exactly sure why it is. It happens
Melissa:So hopefully we can catch up just in time for the Lunar New Year,
Chris:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I'm going away. I'm
Melissa:where are you going?
Chris:to visit my niece, and so I'm gonna be gone for a few days. So yep. North Carolina, Gonna go to a go to a Carolina Hurricanes game. Ever heard of the Hurricanes?
Melissa:I don't really follow sports, to be honest.
Chris:This is this cracks me up. North Carolina, where it's where it gets below thirty two degrees maybe, like, five times a year has a hockey team.
Melissa:Oh.
Chris:So, like, so does Miami.
Melissa:I mean, like, California does too. You know?
Chris:Up here, like like, We play hockey, like, on ponds. You know what I mean? Can't exactly do that in the Carolinas. But, anyway, should be a good time. So I don't know if that'll have an impact on when we record next and when we get content out, but hopefully not. We're trying to keep up with everything. So Thank you everybody for listening and sticking with us. And by the way, more feedback on the conveyor episode than any I'm telling you, people like the conveyor episode.
Melissa:That's too funny.
Chris:lot of this content is pretty evergreen too. So if you if, you know, if you're if you're just catching up to the the podcast and you wanna listen to something, a lot of the old stuff is is still relevant and
Melissa:Yeah. For
Chris:here. So, great. Well, let's generate some new content, Melissa. What do you
Melissa:That sounds absolutely wonderful.
Chris:Alright. Well, so I I had been wanting to do an episode for a long time with, a manufacturer of materials that we use. Because I just love to hear, you know, sort of the way that this show is pulling back the curtain on what's going on in electronics manufacturing. I wanted I wanted to use this as a tool to also pull back the curtain on on everything else that's going on in electronics manufacturing, not just within this factory, but who are our suppliers. Right? So I would love to get people, like like, stencil people on the show, and I'd love to get, like, pick and place people on the show and and kinda pick their brain a little bit. And we we've had a couple opportunities like that, but like, even just the most recent So just talking about software and how software is used for, um, these sorts of things. You know, we've had test equipment people on the show and stuff like that. But So this week we're gonna have a discussion with Gayle Towel from AIM which we've talked quite a bit about AIM in the past.
Melissa:There we have.
Chris:up in Montreal. That was a epic, epic experience. But but, yeah, let's have her in, Gail. Gail, welcome to the show, and thanks for coming on the Pick Place podcast.
Gayle:Hi. Happy to be here.
Chris:So let me make sure I got your bio right. You are a you are the the grand poobah at AIM. Is that correct? Did I read that title right? The grand poobah?
Gayle:I I don't think I put that
Chris:Oh, shoot. Alright. I missed I missed all that. No. The content the content marketing specialist for AIMS Solder. And you're a smarty pants. You've got degrees in mathematics and physics. This is yeah. I'm just a lowly engineer. We just you know, We take your math and your physics and try to apply it to the real world. We don't really know what any
Gayle:which is really the purpose of it
Chris:Yeah. I guess so, isn't it? Yeah. Brilliant. And so, I guess you've you've been using, you know, your experience in this field to, help generate content and technical papers and things for AIM. And I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and, you know, what you were doing before you came to AIM and and what led to your current role here.
Gayle:My background's a little weird.
Chris:It all?
Gayle:so I I got master's degrees in math and physics. I went into teaching from college. I taught mostly at a community college for I think twelve years or so teaching astronomy and physics and math classes. And,
Chris:That sounds cool, actually.
Gayle:Yeah. It sounds cool. During that time, I also started pursuing a passion for creative writing and fiction writing and was doing a lot of that on the side. Then when I went
Chris:Your own creative writing and fiction
Gayle:Yes.
Chris:Oh, no way. What is with all these talented artists coming on the show? I don't understand this. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.
Gayle:yeah. And then I wanted to leave teaching, and I was trying to figure out what on earth I do with myself and
Chris:to write any episodes of soap operas, did you? Because that would just
Gayle:No soap operas.
Chris:thing. Because our guest last week was in soap operas, So that would just been wild if, like, you wrote some of the episodes. Yeah.
Gayle:No. No. No. No. But I decided to try my hand at some just freelance writing. You know, I had Studied writing, I was really good at technical stuff, and there was a really great niche for people who can handle complex technical subject matter and write about it well. And since I've been not only creative writing, but teaching, I mean, you get a lot of the ability to communicate complex ideas. And that was going very well, and then I went to pursue a full time role somewhere, and AIM Solder had this role available that they were trying to figure out how they find someone to fill, where they needed to be able to Do all the content writing and the marketing writing, but also understand what all of the technical people were doing and how everything was being developed and be able to communicate that. And so I was able to just slide right in and it's been a great fit.
Chris:Cool. So how long have you been with AIM?
Gayle:Only since April. I would say it feels like longer, but in a good way. In a good way.
Chris:Okay. Alright. Alright. Very good. If they make you feel like you're at home, is that is that what
Gayle:Yeah. Yeah. It's been a very very comfortable fit.
Chris:Yeah. They're they're a great organization. I've I've enjoyed working them as a working with them as a on the on the customer side of things. So I imagine they treat their people quite well because they got good people there.
Gayle:Yeah. I mean, one of our things that I've noticed is how long so many of the people have been here. People come and they stay.
Chris:stay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well, so I'll Okay. I have all kinds of questions, but let's let's not let's not get into my questions yet. I just wanna make I wanna make sure I understand kinda your role. So when you say contact marketing specialist, the goal there is to is to create what? It's it's to write technical papers. It's to, like, interact with customers. Like, what, like, what is What does your day look like or maybe what does your week look like? What's what's your agenda?
Gayle:It's a lot of different things. So sometimes I'm I'm writing press releases about products or things happening with their company. Sometimes I am working on technical papers and presentations that we might be doing at a conference. Sometimes I'm putting together PowerPoint presentations for, uh, peep other people to deliver at conferences or for internal, you know, product releases and things like that. I've been doing a lot of work. We're gonna be updating our website very soon, so I've been doing a lot of the content work for that. And when we do update it, we're gonna have a blog section, so there'll be regular blog content
Chris:sympathize with that exercise. That's a lot of
Gayle:Yeah. And then trying to place trying to write and place technical articles in different trade journals and things like that as well. So any Written content and then I also do, um, I help out with some of our social media content I've been doing. We have this series called lying down where we Discuss a problem that might happen related to solder on the production line and what to do about it, and so I've been taking those on. So, Basically, any anything that's content. Usually written content, but anything from the heavily technical to the heavily marketing and everything in between.
Chris:Okay. Yeah.
Melissa:that very relatable myself, actually. Yeah.
Chris:I was gonna say, you just described
Melissa:Yeah. Basically.
Chris:Wonderful. So, That sounds great. So with with only having been there for seven or eight months, feel free to stop me if I ask you a question that is just, you know, like, alright, Chris. This is something that you need to talk to one of our our doctorate PhD guys about this kind of stuff. But it's mostly just I'm curious about, um, the the gist of the show is to is to, you know, We expose engineers to what goes on in electronics manufacturing and how we how we get the job done. So we buy products from AIM. wE buy, you know, just there's just the raw material, just the raw solder alloy that ends up getting used in our Selective soldering machines or it can be used in, like, wave soldering machines, things like that. We buy wire solder that that has maybe a little bit flux embedded in it for hand soldering, things like that. It's probably what most engineers are familiar with. And we buy solder paste, which we've discussed on the show before. It's like a powder of of metal, powdered metal that's blended up with chemicals, flux in order to create the surface mount solder joints. And I think for me, it's, you know, it's like you open a website, you'll scroll through and you're like, okay, yep, I need some solder paste. Click buy, it shows up. I have no idea how it got there. You know? Like, I went to AIM I went to AIM in Montreal, and I saw their their factory. Mind blowing. Absolutely. Like, the scale of that operation, I just had no idea how big it was. That have you had a chance to visit Canada yet?
Gayle:I haven't been to our Montreal site, but I did go to our Juarez site in Mexico where we have Production and also applications lab there as well.
Chris:What are they doing? What what are they producing in Juarez?
Gayle:Everything.
Chris:Okay. Everything I
Gayle:So all the things the the solder paste, the Bar solder bar, the wire solder, and some specialty materials as well.
Chris:Alright. So chances are if I'm buying you know, a bar solder, it could be coming either from Montreal or Juarez maybe.
Gayle:Yeah. So it probably I don't know the exact details of our shipping strategy, but it typically will ship from where it's easiest to ship from
Chris:Yeah. Which I mean, like, I'm four hours from Montreal, so it's it's probably it's much further from Juarez. But you never know. Whatever's got availability, that sometimes can can take precedent over it. But anyway, so, like, I I'm genuinely curious sometimes about about okay. You know, there was a time when and and I know you you haven't been in this industry as long as some of us ink stained wretches have, which that's actually more your term, ink stained wretch, because in the writing industry, that's where it comes from. Right? But, um, but I've been around this industry for a long time. And I remember When the predominant alloy in this industry was the tin lead alloy, that was the predominant alloy that everybody used. And then somebody started talking about like, hey, you know, what if we got rid of this lead stuff? You know, it's not so great, you know. And Somebody, somewhere, had to take the time to figure out How to blend metals together to create an alloy that could work for electronics manufacturing, could create a reliable solder joint, Wet to lead somehow and could, you know, handle the temperatures and and these sorts of things and and and create a product that that people would buy. At some point, the most, now today, the most popular alloy, now there's a lot of alloys, but probably the most popular lead free alloy that I'm aware of is the shorthand is called SAC three zero five. And it's it's Yeah. It's a very, very popular alloy. I've always been curious what what the process is like that a a company says, okay. We you know, it doesn't have to be you don't you don't have to talk about SAC three zero five. You weren't around thirty years ago when that LOI came up. But, like, Somebody drives a need. Who who is the person driving that need? Is is it a Centimeters like us? Is it is it NASA? Is it You know, Raytheon, like, who who is saying, like, hey. SAC three zero five doesn't work for us, or ten lead doesn't work for us, or s n one hundred c doesn't work for us. You know? We need we need a new product to to accomplish x. And then what does that look like on AIM side of things? Like, do they do they do, like, market analysis or do they, like, Just, you know, like, okay. Well, if you if you'll commit to buying ten thousand pounds of it, then we'll make it for you. You know? Like, I'm I just have no idea, like, what it looks like on the opposite end when it goes to create a new product or it doesn't have to be alloy. It could be flux. It could be whatever, you know, because you guys make everything.
Gayle:Yeah. So well, I mean, it depends on many things. So Some of the what we develop is driven by, you know, what potential customers are saying they need. We need something that does x y z. And we have already several different alloys we make, and we different flux chemistries, and sometimes we can meet that need with existing products.
Chris:Okay.
Gayle:But if we need to develop a new product we we need to evaluate the business case for it. Right? If someone just wants a little bit of something and you know, once a year, it's not really worth our while. But if it's going to be a new product, the use case makes sense. And if we also see that there's, You know, broader market appeal like we could sell this to other people as well. We'll look into that. So some of it is driven by the the needs of the customers and prospective customers. Some of it is also looking ahead and seeing where trends are leading which you can sometimes get hints at if you attend Different conferences. You can see what people are where people are putting the research dollars and what they're trying to make happen.
Chris:Yeah. Because, like, I remember hearing at Apex a couple years ago, people are looking into lower temperature alloys to try to save energy and things like
Gayle:Yeah. That's a big thing because I think when we moved away from lead, a lot of sac three zero five and so on have higher melting temperatures,
Chris:Yeah. Much
Gayle:more energy. And not only that, but, you know, it starts to affect Which components you can use, what kind of board substrate you can use and so on. But the big trick at the beginning is a lot of those low temperature solders Include bismuth and you
Chris:Yes.
Gayle:do bismuth with lead or you get super low temperature and it doesn't work very well. And so we had to wait until the industry really got away from lead, and most things did not have any lead in them. And now, a lot more low temperature solders are able to start coming on the market with bismuth in them because of that. But
Chris:Oh, no kidding. Oh, so you're saying because because the components had lead on them, you couldn't use an alloy that had bismuth because because of this it would it would the end result would be some low temperature melting point
Gayle:Or you might be mixing like different like an existing solder on on a board with the the Low temperature solder. Yeah. So they're now becoming more of a thing because most processes don't have lead in them anymore. So now you can use those alloys, but there's a whole lot of variations on those alloys. So you have your very basic tin bismuth, but then you have people adding all sorts of little bits and pieces of other things like antimony and so on to just change little things about what the alloy does.
Chris:about unobtanium? Do you guys use any unobtanium?
Gayle:That's a trade secret. Okay. But, yeah, I mean, the part of the trick is Bismuth can also make stuff brittle and it doesn't do very well with drop shock. And so there's a lot of what can we do both with the process of Creating the alloy or adding little bits of things into the alloy to make it better, and that's an ongoing thing. There's a lot of people working on How to make a really nice low temperature alloy that can handle drop shock testing.
Chris:Gosh. I would love to have a lower temperature alloy. You know, it's like, when when we were primarily a leaded solder shop, um, to to get the hole fill on a through hole part was like, Alright. It was like you like, oh, okay. This didn't feel very well. Let me just dwell here a little bit longer, and then sure enough, just wicked right up, and life was good, and you moved on. Now with the high temp alloys, it's like, oh, gosh. This is I cannot get this hole to fill. I'm fighting this. So if we can get back now to some low temp alloys, I'm all for it. Except now I bought all your solder and I filled my solder pots. Would you buy it back from me? You want some?
Gayle:Well, we do we do do recycling and reclaim.
Chris:true. Yes. Yes. Yes. I forgot about that. How could I forget? That's what I went to visit in Montreal was the recycling and reclaim. Yeah. It's interesting. So, I I I love the idea of of looking ahead to trends and things like that. Now do you guys present papers and stuff at, like, Apex or Product Tronica, like, what what's what's that like to talk about what you're working on?
Gayle:Yeah. So, one of the things that I'm doing as I'm on as we had sort of, had trouble keeping up with all of that side of things. So I'm trying to ramp that back up again. We do we are potentially presenting on some low temperature solder research at Apex this this year coming up in April. And then we are working on some other projects, uh, hopefully for the next year's SMTAI and the Apex after that Related to looking at t five pastes and
Chris:Oh, interesting. Why t five? What's what's going on there?
Gayle:First of all, the t five refers to the size of the solder powder used in the paste. One of the most common, The higher the number, the smaller the powder. So t four is one of the most commonly used sizes right now. And then but once you start getting smaller and smaller components and you're trying to print that solder on smaller and smaller apertures, you have to go to smaller and powders. So we've been doing a lot of work on our sort of research and development side, working on type six powders and even finer. We actually just released a product a a paste that designed for type six and finer powders. But a lot of companies are working in that type five space right now. And we had I believe we had looked into that several years ago, but we've refined processes and and things have evolved so much since then that our type five capabilities have really significantly improved. And so we're doing sort of a thorough deep dive into, uh, what is the ideal metal load? How well does it Prints using different flux mediums and things like that to sort of come up with the the ideal mixture and use cases For type five solder paste.
Chris:Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. We we are, no surprise, primarily using type four. It's still Kind of the most popular. We've had some apertures though that are pretty tight. And yeah. I I can see the writing on the wall here, you know. And and our the nature of our business is we tend to be at the bleeding edge of capabilities. Because a lot of people are hiring us to test out parts. Right? So when TI comes out with the latest, you know, who's them or what's it, and somebody wants to try it and they just need five of them built. You know, they'll come to us to have them built because you're not going to hand assemble a device that has point two five millimeter pitch, know, solder balls on there. You gotta you have got to build that with machines. So I could I could see type five becoming more of a thing. Do do you have a feel for, like like is it mostly kind of in development, or are people, like, really starting to buy it now and they're starting to use it and and you're you know, you have some volumes that are shipping out the doors. Is it mostly, like, people are just testing the waters with
Gayle:I would say like more and more people are Looking into it. I think we've been doing it more in our Asia market in in China. bUt Like I said, we actually just released in the Americas and for the rest of the world are are a paste designed for type six and smaller which can print through apertures smaller than a hundred and fifty microns. We actually have had successful printing down to things with diameters of around seventy or eighty Microns, so it's designed for the very, very, very tiny apertures.
Chris:I can't I can't even imagine that must be a chemically etched no. I I think they can make apertures that small on a laser.
Gayle:they are making Yeah. I'm not sure how this the stencils are made but they're Thinner and very tiny apertures and they usually have a coating on them I think to aid in the release because it starts to get really tricky once you get that
Chris:I can't remember the last stencil I used that did not have that coating on them. I mean, it's just like they all need it now. There's everything has fine pitch parts on it. We need that coating to get the release we're looking after. Yeah. Interesting. Alright. So let me let me ask then. Alright. You're you're doing this research. You're looking into these things. Who are the people doing this, though? Are are the are the Scientists, are they chemists? Are they physicists? Mathematicians that went to the University of Oregon? Or what what what are who
Gayle:Yeah. So we have research and development teams and we have research and development facilities in Canada, Mexico, and China. And it consists of chemists, metallurgists, process engineers. Those are the sort of people involved. And we keep them supplied with all of the latest equipment, so we can make sure we're we're getting accurate measurements
Chris:you have a stencil printer that you're or maybe multiple, probably. Yeah.
Gayle:so yeah. So it's basically a lot of scientists. So one of my coworkers likes to call them the eggheads, you know.
Chris:That ain't right. And they're and they're just okay. So, like, in my world, we get, You know, we get like a work order. Somebody comes to us and says, hey, we gotta build this, and it has all the information of what we have to work on. In their world is somebody like hypothesizing, like, I think I need to develop a product like this and then going out and trying it out, or is there like is there like a is do they get a work order that says, hey, or blend these things together? I guess the process engineers are probably the ones who get the work orders from the scientists. That's probably how that
Gayle:Yeah. I think it's more of a we need a product that can do this or that. And then they start to figure out, okay, well, that's gonna require using smaller particles or changing the flux chemistry or and they just Start experimenting with different variations until they come upon a solution.
Chris:Gosh. Science is so cool. Alright. So, I'm actually we're in the middle of evaluating reflow ovens right now. We're trying to investigate what kind of reflow oven we wanna buy. We're looking at a few different vendors, and there's there's some great options out there. But one of the things that that gets talked about when it comes to reflow ovens and you know, a mass soldering process in general, is whether to solder in air or whether to solder in some kind of inert environment. Because you could you could you could take a traditional reflow oven, And you can fill it with nitrogen, and you can reflow in an inert environment that way. Or you can use, like, a vapor phase system which uses I forgot what the it's like I think the term is like a golden fluid. It's like liquid Teflon that they boil into a vapor, and it's it's really stinking cool. But anyway, From your side of things, you must have some understanding of the market and how to develop products. Do you do you know if AIM specifically targets, developing products for, We wanna make sure this works really, really well in air. We don't care how it performs in nitrogen and vice versa. Or, you know, Is that even a consideration? Or or I've I've always been curious about that. And the reason I'm particularly asking right now is because Should I be spending all this money trying to get a nitrogen oven? Or or are you guys, like, no. We we we do all our research for error. Chris, you don't have to worry about it.
Gayle:Well, so it's a it's a it's a little complicated. So, I mean, ideally, and I think this is probably true of any solder manufacturer, we would really like all of our products to work just fine in air. We would like the alloy, the flux chemistry. So the flux is sort of what the problem with air is the oxidation. Right? So if
Chris:Great for us, horrible for everything else.
Gayle:Exactly. So the metal comes in contact with oxygen and then it oxidizes and creates things that that cause problems when you try to solder and doesn't attach as well and so on. So the flux chemistry is designed to minimize that oxidation. Okay? But it's not perfect. So if you have oxygen, you can have oxidation. But if you remove the oxygen and replace it Nitrogen which doesn't react in the same way, then that doesn't happen. So we ideally try to get our products to be as great in Oxygen and in air as they can be, but in certain cases, if depending upon how critical an application is or in particular what we've been looking at is Smaller and smaller particle size, it becomes much more of an issue. And the reason for that Yeah. So it's it's sort of, If you think of tiny little spheres, once the spheres it's the surface of the sphere that is going to oxidize. Right? And when you make a bunch of smaller spheres, if you take the total surface area divided by the mass, It actually gets bigger and bigger, so you have much more surface exposed when you're using smaller particles, and because of that, oxidation can be much more of an issue. And so, when
Chris:even cross my mind. That's fascinating. Okay.
Gayle:Yeah. And so, once you start getting down, we actually recommend with our type six pastes and smaller that you people use nitrogen reflow and it's just because, you know, the flux can only do so much. It can't be completely perfect No matter how well we try to design it, and so you attack the problem of oxidation from another angle by getting rid of the oxygen and replacing it with
Chris:Right. Yeah. Because we have we have kinda two processes. We we listeners and and customers are probably very familiar with the fact that we have a prototype assembly line where we jet all of our solder paste, and we have A couple production assembly lines where we stencil print all of our solder paste. And we use a competitive a competitor's jettable, solder paste for that. And I believe it's there's two kinds. I believe one is type six and the other might also be type six, but I wanna say it Could possibly even be type seven. And one of them can be used in air. It can be used for larger, uh, dots. And the other one has to be reflowed to nitrogen and but it's used for very, very small dots. So when we're doing very fine pitch, components and we're ejecting the solder paste. We have to re reflow those in nitrogen. But the nitrogen is so expensive. Like, it's so expensive that just to just to give listeners and and yourself, if you're not already familiar with an idea of how expensive nitrogen is. If we were to we today we buy it. Okay? But we buy it in a liquefied form and it shows up in a in a giant tractor trailer with a huge, like, six inch hose coming off the back of it that plugs into a nine hundred gallon tank and fills this up. And then that comes out of the liquid state. It it goes into what's called an evaporator. It's basically like a heat exchanger. It's like a radiator in your car, and it takes the liquid and converts it into a gas, and then we pump that gas into our reflow oven to to reflow your boards in nitrogen. But each one of those deliveries is, like, thousands of dollars, and we get it, I think we get it almost every week we get these deliveries. So we were like, okay. It's really expensive to buy all this nitrogen. What if we generate it on-site? I mean, What's air? Air is like seventy percent nitrogen or something like that. Right? So we looked at the generators. Generators are like A generator large enough to to supply our reflow oven, just one reflow oven, is like twice the cost of the reflow oven itself. Like, it's crazy how expensive it is. And then you gotta pay for Electricity to power these things, which is an it's enormous amount of power. You gotta be replacing filters, and you got belts, and you got coolant, and you got oil, and you got all these like, it's it's a whole thing. You know? It's like, oh, man. So this is why AIM really, really likes to make their products work in air because nitrogen's very expensive.
Gayle:And, you know, and depending upon your application that might be just weighing the costs and benefits of if we do this without nitrogen, How many problems are we running into, and what is the cost of dealing with that versus what is the cost of just using
Chris:Yeah. Because one order one order might be the cost of our nitrogen generator. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like, one order. So, in that case, it might be worth it. That's not profit. Listeners out there, we're not I'm not raking it in. I'm not not driving a Ferrari out of the parking lot. That's not profit. That's just the total order value that includes all of my time. It includes all the parts and all your boards. The the vapor phase though. I'm curious if you have any familiarity with vapor phase, and And does AIM try to consider vapor phase when they're designing products? Or is it just like, hey, it works in vapor phase too?
Gayle:I'm not super familiar with vapor phase off the top of my head, But I think, like like I said before, like, when we design stuff, ideally, we wanted to do as good as possible in air, And then the other additions just are attacking oxidation from a different angle.
Chris:Okay. Vapor Phase is super cool. I would love to get somebody that knows Vapor Phase on the show. It's like, apparently, I remember Hearing from a manufacturer that the liquid, um, Melissa, I know you we talked about this before, the material. Do you remember the name of
Melissa:Nope. I'm trying to
Chris:She's googling it. It's it's like a liquid Teflon or something like that, but it's used in, like, makeup and stuff. It gets like a relatively harmless material that
Melissa:Golden? Yeah. It is golden.
Chris:Okay. It is golden. And and they you know, it it stays at one temperature, so you can Put your board in there. You could put it in there for an hour. Well, not really. You wouldn't wanna put it in there for an hour. But you could you could and it's never gonna change temperature. The weight of a reflow oven, you gotta get that thing out because otherwise, it'll it'll burn your circuit board. So you can do some really cool stuff with these vapor phase systems, but they too are very expensive, expensive to operate. You know, you have all other kinda weird process considerations you gotta go through with all of them and everything, but it's a really neat technology. The other thing I was curious about from and I was hoping to pick your brain a little bit. In in my opinion, and I might be wrong and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but there are more or less two categories of flux in the world. I mean, there's lots of categories, but there's two primary heavy hitters in the world of flux. You have your so called no clean flux, And you have your water washable organic acid fluxes. I'm really, I really want you to answer this, and I really bet you don't want to answer this.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Chris:I really want you to tell me, Chris, We put all of our energy designing no clean fluxes. We the organic acid fluxes, we don't we don't we don't put a lot of r and d in those into into those anymore. So just just buy our no clean because that's the best fluxes. Is that true?
Gayle:We definitely do, I think, a lot more no clean
Chris:Yes.
Gayle:now. no clean is also like whether it's truly no clean depends on your situation too. So, I mean, usually, it's minimal residue, and we always test it to make sure there's no, like, It has good surface insulation resistance. You're not gonna get sort of electrochemical migration or anything going through any remaining residue. So we're always testing all of that. But
Chris:you ask if you ask Mike Conrad, who's a friend of the show, he'll tell you it all needs to be cleaned. Get it all
Gayle:Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. It it that could be application
Chris:Well, it's in his best interest because he sells board washers. So
Gayle:go.
Chris:he wants it all clean, you know. The more cleaning we have to do, the more the board More board washers, he sells. Yeah. But we we found that. And when when we go to the shows and stuff, typically, your aims of the world and their various competitors, what they're bragging about and what they wanna talk about are these chemistries that generally are considered no clean. You know, if used properly in your processes control and, you know, all kinds of asterisks and footnotes there just to make sure everybody understands that no clean is just a marketing term. Yes. I understand.
Gayle:Well, a lot of the way it works is with the flux is like the it has to all get past a a certain temperature to activate and then become inert. And so if you've got certain components that are trapping bits of the flux in them or things like that during the reflow, then then it becomes an issue. So
Chris:no issues. Not coming out of this factory, Gail.
Gayle:Okay. Everything's perfect. You guys never run into a
Chris:Never. Never. Nope. I wish. Yeah. So, no. That's fascinating, though. I I I I, you know, it seemed pretty obvious, and I would and I have always told people just from my own observations, like, Look, you know, everybody's pouring their effort into no clean solder paste because we don't wanna you know, you talk about environmental responsibility. There's a lot of, you know, chemicals and heat and water that's used in washing boards. So if you can create a product that's reliable without having to take the flux off of it it it there is an environmental impact to leaving that all in place. So,
Gayle:Yeah. I mean, not only that, like, you've you're skipping a process step. You can do a lot more, A lot faster.
Chris:and we have officially purchased a a board washer. Must I don't know if that's news to you or not, but we
Melissa:What have
Chris:Yep. And so it should be arriving in the next, I don't know, several months whenever it does arrive, and we'll be able to offer that service. But that service is not gonna be free. Right, you're gonna it's it's gonna be something you have to pay for because, you know, like you said, it's it's an added it's an added process. It's an added step. And, um, yeah, I would listeners, if you're if you're designing products and you need boards washed you know, really consider excuse me. If you think you need boards washed, really consider if your product really does need to have the boards washed because it is, you know, an added step. There's it's not a zero risk either. Parts can become damaged in a in a wash process. There's certain parts that cannot get wet. You know? And and so then, okay, do we hand solder those parts? You know, that it's it's not as simple as just throw this thing in and then walk away. It's it there's a whole process control development side of things. So, a lot of these no clean solder pastes are, are being cleaned. And that's probably what we're gonna do. We're probably not gonna buy organic acid fluxes and and try to clean those. We're probably gonna buy no clean, and when customers request it, we're gonna try to clean it. Think we can do it, Gail? Of course, we can do it.
Gayle:Well, yes. There are ways to do it, but it is worth noting that Sometimes the if you try to clean no clean, the cleaner you use can't just can't be the isn't necessarily the same that you would use on on something else. And then they'll also not all no cleans are the same. Of them you you may not have an issue with at all. And other ones, if don't clean them, you end up with issues. So the flux chemistry makes a big difference who whoever the manufacturer is and so on. So There's always a thousand variables at play at any given time. Right?
Chris:right. That's right. And we're reaching out to the chemistry companies that make the cleaning chemicals to you know, make sure we're getting all that qualified for the type of flux reason. Do you Gail, if you don't mind my asking, do you have a reasonably good understanding? And if you don't, just say no and we'll move on. That's totally fine. But I I have long struggled to understand the classifications of fluxes. Right? I I always hear, like, Rolo and Halide free in these terms. And every time I I, like, look at this stuff, I'm like, okay. I'm finally gonna sit down and this stuff out so they understand it. And then I'm just like I I don't understand it. And I just walk away from it. And and to this day, I still don't have a thorough understanding of what these terms mean and what they're trying to address by these various classifications. Do you do you have a feel for what they are and what they mean and and why I should care about them?
Gayle:Yeah. I'm I'm I'm not gonna be able to to recite off the top of my head, but the basic notion, I think, well, the halogen and hyaloid free
Chris:thought you were the grand poobah of
Gayle:Well, I did not say that. That is not on my bio. Thank you very much.
Chris:I misread that. I misread that.
Gayle:Yeah. So so sometimes it has to do with whether a customer is trying to meet certain specifications, uh, like reach or the RoHS
Chris:Okay. Yep.
Gayle:Requirements and so you can't have halogens in your product. And I know there's a distinction between, like, whether it Has added halogens versus whether halogens are there somehow after things are put together, And there's, like, distinctions in that way. And then the I'm trying to remember the, like, the the The, like, r o l zero stuff, it has to do with halogens and it has to do, I think, also with, something to do with whether the chemicals are Organic or rosin or resin or something. But I do have on my list to write up an article about this for our blog when it comes up
Chris:you do, be sure to
Gayle:that's something I'm always like, oh wait, I forget which one was which now and I, you know, it's It's really easy to mix that up, so a nice detailed outline of what exactly it means,
Chris:do me a favor. Add add me to your distribution list your blog newsletter, however you're gonna publish the fact that you have new blog posts. And I will read that as soon as it's released because inquiring minds want to know. Do you guys remember that commercial? That was a good nineties commercial.
Gayle:Yes. Yes.
Chris:know. It's like, wasn't it for the National Enquirer, actually? I think it was.
Gayle:yes. I believe so.
Chris:is like a rag about, like, if the aliens are real and
Gayle:Yeah. That boy
Chris:Yeah.
Gayle:out of his cave.
Chris:Yeah. That boy. Oh my gosh. That's good stuff. See? Everybody everybody had wild stories in their time. It wasn't just it wasn't just the twenty twenties that we had these wild stories. Beautiful. Anything else? Anything else we we didn't touch on that you wanted to chat about or discuss or you know, Fill us in on why they call you the grand poo bot at
Gayle:Who calls me that? Where is this coming from?
Chris:It's my ridiculous personality is where it's coming from, Gail.
Gayle:Man, there's too much too much expectation there.
Chris:I
Gayle:still I'm still learning.
Chris:Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I I tell you what. For for somebody who's been with with with a soldering company for, if I'm doing my math right eight months. You're you're doing pretty well there. You I I asked you some hard hitting questions, and you
Gayle:it it helps to have a background in in, like, physics. A lot of this I mean, a lot of solder is physics. It's from yeah.
Chris:Of course. Alright. So let's do it. Let's get into our favorite part of the episode. Really, the real reason we do this podcast is it has nothing to do with electronics manufacturing. We just like to get pet peeves off our chest. So, I understand you have a good one. Do you wanna lay it on us?
Gayle:iNefficiency. And inefficiency in many, many ways, not even just in processes, But, you know, if you ever watch people deplane when you travel or if you've been to a to a grocery store recently,
Chris:Gail.
Gayle:people don't know how to move to the side and allow the flow of traffic. Yes. Inefficiency is a big pet peeve of mine.
Chris:It's like you went into my mind and extracted my thoughts.
Gayle:I did. You didn't notice I was in there?
Chris:That one and you and and while you were there, you implanted the grand poo ba title. Is
Gayle:Yes. Yes. Yes. You
Chris:That is so funny. So we've talked about, like, airport inefficiencies and stuff. I love that you mentioned And I I I don't think this is a huge pet peeve of mine, but I don't think I've ever really put my finger on it. Moving out of the way for the flow of traffic.
Melissa:Yeah.
Gayle:do this thing too, like, I don't know if you've been in crowds. If they walk into a new room or through some sort of portal to another, they stop because they're trying to figure out what to do next instead of moving to the side and then figuring it out.
Chris:so true. It's so true. I was just my wife and I just ran a five k in a nearby town. Did they call it the hot chocolate run? It's a great time. You get hot chocolate the end, made it the local brewery. And so everybody walks up to get their hot chocolate out of the they have these insulated dispensers, you know? And and you get your hot chocolate and they turn around and they start sipping it and you're like, you're in front of the dispenser? Hello?
Gayle:Yep. Yep. It's like there's something in our, like, Instinctual nature that makes us just stay near the thing or you get into the new room. Yes. Some of us are very good about moving to the
Chris:Not that I'm very good at it. I'm really uncomfortable being in the way. Like, I'm really really uncomfortable when I'm in the way. Like, I'm trying to find the corner I can get out of people's way because I do not like,
Gayle:Yeah. Because I know how much I hate people who do that. I don't want people hating me, so I have to be perfect on this front so I can judge others.
Chris:That's right.
Gayle:gotta have the moral high ground.
Chris:I like that. Having the world high ground. Oh, that, That's
Melissa:Yeah. Especially this time of year. It's the worst.
Chris:good
Gayle:Oh, yes. Don't go don't go to grocery stores on the weekends right now. It's it's a terrible situation.
Chris:My wife my wife showed me a meme the other day that said well, not the other day. It was a while ago now. And it was like it was like a a man, like, talking to his wife, and he goes you know, he's like, honey, I love you so much. I'd even go to Costco on a Saturday with you.
Gayle:Yes.
Chris:And so she sent that to me, and then it was like it was Saturday, and we had to go to a Costco. And I'm like, Oh, let's see the zoo. Because normally normally, I have an amazing wife, and she does all the shopping for our family. And And I rarely ever have to go to one of these stores. But I was like, let's go together, you know. Let's go on a Saturday. And I just like sat back like it was like a performance. I was like, This is insane. And I'm the guy that, like, parks really far away because I don't like to be in people's way. So I park at, like, the very edge of the parking lot. I'd much rather just Walk in rather than drive through all the traffic and pedestrians and everything. And, like, just just like standing back at the back of the parking lot and Watching the madness of people try to navigate a parking lot, I'm like, holy moly. This is nuts. This is stressful. No wonder, like, the days that my wife goes shopping, It's like, you know, she's like spent she's spent. You know, you get home. It's like,
Gayle:Well, I have a I have a trick for dealing with this, and this is my same trick for dealing with being annoyed in traffic, and that is Audio books and podcasts in your ear. So you got something else going on, you can be less annoyed by everything that's in front of you.
Chris:I agree with that. I agree with that. You you got a good podcast for us? Something you really enjoy that
Gayle:Oh my gosh.
Chris:It doesn't have to be related to electronics. It could be, you know, you're really into some, like, you know, uh-uh, commentary on the Golden Bachelor. I don't know.
Gayle:I mean, lately, I've been, I've been listening to some audiobooks about the Ottoman Empire, you know, with all the conflict in the Middle East. I'm trying to get to the bottom of things
Chris:Are you are you referring to Dan Carlin's podcast about the Ottoman Empire?
Gayle:No. I don't think I've come across that. I've been listening to some of them. I don't know if anyone's ever come across the great courses series.
Chris:Yeah. Yeah.
Gayle:Yeah. So there's a lot of lecture series that they have on on all sorts of historical things. So I've been doing some Ottoman Empire, some big history, trying to piece together, you know, the entire current state of humanity and how it got
Chris:Oh, then hopefully, you can solve it for us, Gail,
Gayle:I'm working on it. It's it's it's coming. It's coming.
Chris:So so Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, very famous podcast. He had a whole bit on the Ottoman Empire. It was excellent. It's going back a few years now. But, Um, I I am a big fan of the podcast ninety nine percent Invisible. And I think a lot of people are. I wouldn't be alone there. I think it's one of the more Popular podcast out there. And they are doing a deep dive on, Uh, Robert Moses and the book that was written about him called The Power Broker. Have you ever heard of this book?
Gayle:No.
Chris:Okay. So people who've heard of this book are, like, obsessed with it. Absolutely obsessed with it. And it's one of these things where, like, once you've read it, If you can't help but tell everybody about it and, like, to an like, an annoying state, it's like, oh, do you know that guy? He
Gayle:how to annoy your
Chris:Yeah. Exactly. How to know your know your friends and influence nobody. It's but so it's my My favorite podcast, and they're doing they're like, we're gonna read this book together, and we're gonna do about a hundred pages a month, and we're gonna discuss those hundred pages each month for this podcast. I'm like, alright. I love this podcast, so I'll I'll I'll pull it up. And I bought it. Be you can't buy it on Kindle, which is very annoying. No idea why you can't buy it on Kindle. But the worst part about it is, I so I bought it on paperback. This book, it it's I think they classify it as a weapon. I'm pretty sure it should be classified as a weapon. This thing is seven hundred thousand words. Seven hundred thousand words. I go, I'm trying to put this into context. I go, wait a
Gayle:pages did they get that into? Like, how small is the
Chris:it's small. It is small. And then, And I'm I'm trying to put this into context. I'm like, wait a second. How many pages so I Google, the bible is seven hundred and twenty five thousand words. The Bible
Gayle:Yeah. I think most, like, novels are usually in the hundred thousand word range.
Chris:so I'm thinking to myself, what have I committed myself too. And so I started I started reading it, and I get it. Like, I got it within the first couple chapters. I'm like, oh, this is an amazing book. Because As an American, it is so much about how, like, things outside of politics works in government. You know? So it's like, okay. Outside of the political system, how does the government work, and and how do people influence things, and how does stuff get built, and, you know, how do how does how does this life that we call civilization in the United States come about. And and we're using Robert Moses and his career as a lens to focus in on that. And it's like, it's really, really interesting, really fascinating. But, yeah, so now I'm that guy. Now I'm that guy that has to
Gayle:Now I have to check it out.
Chris:You know what I mean? Yeah. The power broker. I'm not sure if there's gonna be as many lessons to learn in the power broker as there would be in the bible, but we'll see. We'll see how far we get on Yeah. Yeah. That's a good pet peeve, Gail. Oh, man. I mean, we get some doozies on here. That's top That's number one. That's the best one yet. It's the best one. The inefficiency of movement of people. Yeah. Because it just it strikes
Gayle:inefficiency in general. Like, I always feel like it it it is my nature to streamline processes as best I can. Like, it's is something I do without even thinking about it, and so when I come across people who don't even
Chris:See
Gayle:the world that way,
Chris:It's like they're blind. Right? It's like you you don't you don't even have this sixth sense that you're like do you when
Gayle:aren't plotting five steps ahead to figure out how to line things up and do twenty things simultaneously so you can get it all done quicker. What's wrong
Chris:Exactly. Well, I'll tell you what, Gail. With the if this whole thing with AIM doesn't work out. You come out here to Massachusetts, we got a job for you. We need we need efficient thinkers. Actually, Melissa, was it the last episode where I talked about this where I have, like, to efficient no. It was the conveyor episode. It was the conveyor episode. Gal, if you wanna hear my whole discussion on my addiction to efficiency and and I and I call it an addiction because I think it's unhealthy. Like, I think I've damaged relationships with it. I
Gayle:Well, yeah. Well, a part of the problem with it is you can, you know, when you think you can Make everything more efficient when you really can't because there's always that theory versus practice. Right? Like, Hypothetically, in your mind, you can see how it'll be super efficient. Then, when reality happens, little little things start coming in that you didn't include in your analysis, So you can only judge from afar.
Chris:That's right. That's right. Because we are social creatures, and we base our decisions on social things, not on facts, and that's just how the world is. So alright. Great. Thank you for coming on the show. Really, really enjoyed this, and it's just been wonderful. I I'm gonna have follow-up questions for you. Okay? So you're gonna get emails from me whether you want it or not.
Gayle:yay.
Chris:Said every person ever when they heard me say that to them. Brilliant. So, yeah, as always, we welcome the audience to get in touch with us. We're contact at pick place podcast dot com. How if if listeners wanna get in touch with Gail, what's the what's the best way to get in touch with yourself?
Gayle:You can email me at g towell, that's g t o w e l l At aims solder dot com. Yeah. Second l, very important.
Chris:At aim at aim solder dot com. K? A I m solder dot com. Excellent. So, and please anybody who's listening, if you've enjoyed the show best way to spread the message about it, leave us a review as Melissa always reminds us. But I really like to say, tell a friend. Tell somebody if you think they'll enjoy it. Gail, tell some friends that aim to listen to this episode.
Gayle:I will, I will. We're gonna add it to our next The internal newsletter. We're gonna be putting some links maybe on social media.
Chris:Oh, that's great. Beautiful. I appreciate it.
Melissa:Wonderful. Thanks so much, and thanks everyone for listening to the Pick Place podcast. And if you like what you heard, consider following us in your favorite podcast app, And please leave us a review, like Chris said, on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast from.
Chris:Thanks, everybody. Thanks,