[sdiy] Cleaning assembled PCBs

[Samppa Tolvanen]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:38 AM, Tom Arnold <xyzzy at sysabend.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 09:21:07PM +0000, Karl Ekdahl wrote:
>> I've got a load of *really* dirty PCBs, they're literally covered in soth and i was wondering if there's any easier way of cleaning the PCBs then going over them with a cuetip... Even that way i cannot reach under components etc.
>>
>

Ultrasonic bath sounds fine.

I did a Acetone test for a few scrap parts: Participants were, 0,5w
leaded resistor, a couple of smallish elcos, a tranny, a couple of
plastic caps, a couple of ICs, a polypropylene cap (horizontal, a
round one), a polystyrene cap (vertical, box style) and pcb connector
(soft plastic).

Can't tell, if electronic performance was affected (I doubt it), but
acetone didn't seem to attack the construction of any of these parts
(plastic melting). With rubbing, both elcos were losing the markings
and one of the plastic caps.

Your mileages may way and this involves releasing Pollutants to the
Athmosphere ;)

Samppa