Public Release of the Apex Spectrum--in Resin!

Dangerous Announcements
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I detailed this somewhere in a video a while back, but my current theory is that the problem is not solder related.

  1. By a huge vast almost absolute majority, the passive component we see this problem with is an LED. Capacitors, resistors, SMT chips like the NTAG5 or NTAGI2C do not seem to have a problem, thus it must not be solder related.

  2. The way an SMT LED is constructed involves two “pads” used to solder the component to the PCB, but from these pads we have wirebond wire (thinner than human hair) going from the pad to the internal diode elements. Encasing the diode elements and wirebond connecting wire is an optically clear resin.

Having worked with many resins and polymers, I believe the problem lies in the resin’s inability to bond with any meaningful strength to the pads. Once that weak bond breaks, even a little, a tiny amount of movement between the pad and resin becomes possible. Once that happens, the ultra-thin fragile wirebond wire shears and the LED stops working.

Thus, with no flexing at all in a rigid AMS, the LED should survive for a very long time.

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