Mike,

 Oxidation can be eliminated/reduced by having the bopards tin plated.
 This is most easily done at mfg time by the board maker.  You can get
 tin plating solutions to do it yourself, but I'll have to look up
 the name of the place I'm thinking of.

 Shorts can be taken care of by having a solder mask put on again at
 the time of mfg by the board house.  I suppose you could probably do
 this yourself too, but it would be difficult at best I believe.
 At this point, I'd say your best chance at short free population of
 the boards is careful soldering.  And even that won't guarantee no
 problems.

 It's a little more expensive at the outset, but I suggest having the
 board house apply both a solder mask and tin plating on the traces as
 the board is manufactured.   You'll be glad you did in the long run.

 Of course, you could flow solder on all traces, but this is very
 time consuming, and not really pretty when said and done.

 Hope this helps.


                                          Regards,

                                            Jim



On Thu, 04 May 2000, Mike Knoll wrote:

>
> I made a circuit boards, and now they're sitting there, with bare copper
> exposed to air.  I found some products used to coat boards to prevent
> shorts, but also thought oxidation may be a problem.  Has anyone had
> oxidation of bare copper boards?  The coatings in Mouser are $15/can,
> anyone found any cheaper solution?
>
> Mike

jim@jpes.com