Point taken, at least partially :-) My information is from an old book about reliable production methods for electronic hardware. Surface mount wasn't invented when it was written. The bit about the joint being mechanically sound refers to wires soldered to tags, lugs etc, where strain or vibration could cause the solder joint to break if the wire wasn't mechanically fastened before it was soldered. For devices built for use in vehicles or industrial environments I think the argument is valid, for office environments probably less so. Also, I am under the impression that heavier surface mount items would be glued down as well as soldered? Obviously, whether the solder will hold or not depends on the weight of the item being soldered and the stresses the device is subjected to. I recently bought a signal generator off the 'net which arrived non-working, because a large (about 2 cm diameter by 10 cm high) electrolytic capacitor had broken loose at one of the solder joints. It was only held by the solder joints. Another problem I have seen, which relates to surface mount devices, is that the instrument cluster on my car (a 1996 BMW) goes dead every now and then, only to come alive again after a moment. A number of people have reported that this appears to be due to bad solder joints on the PCB, which has a number of surface mount devices. /Jonas