Finally – the fun part! After all of your work specifying the right materials and applying them, at last we can test all of the assumptions we have made, and the effects of our assembly process. There are many criteria you can test, depending on a specific application, but, in general, you will want to test out the wetting characteristics and mechanical durability at a minimum.
Testing wetting characteristics can be as simple as a J-STD wetting test, although I prefer testing various surface finishes to learn more about the flux/alloy combination than just how it performs on copper.
Mechanical durability can also be very simply tested. This may be a shear test to break off the component. For some very well-suited equipment you may want to look into XYZTec bond testers. I have used these in the past and found them to be very well built and easy to use.
*This post is part of the World of Solder Preforms series