Chloride Upstream of Bright Acid Tin [Colorado]

Dear Michael,

Not knowing your exact installation, but I would be more afraid of the drag-in of Nickel from the Wood's strike, which will be plated out together with your Tin in the Sn-electrolyte, thereby deteriorating your Sn-solderability. The chloride doesn't seem the culprit to me. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Why not use a mixed bed ion resin to clean the second rinse? Mr. Robert's remark is for sure a very good one too, however to install an extra process in an existing installation could be a costly exercise, best would be to combine these two actions. (Only additional rinses will be dangerous as you have a change that your nickel surface becomes passive, the strike mentioned by Mr. Robert acts as a re-activation as well.)
Furthermore, there's a Dutch saying "meten is weten" which translated means "if you measure, you know". I would also implement Ni measurements for your Sn-electrolyte and set a limit, based on your past experience as well.

Best regards,
Harry van der Zanden
- Budapest, Hungary

Mr. Probert,

That's a very good idea. We find that replating over the chloride contaminated coating restores solderability to our parts, so having a strike layer to catch contamination prior to adding a clean layer would work perfectly.

Now to sell management on the idea...