[sdiy] de-potting

[Colin Fraser]

> I've Googled up some info about a chemical called 'Attack', 
> which tends to work good on epoxy. Any of you guys ever used 
> this before?

Nope, but I have used Nitromors All Purpose Paint and Varnish Remover.
You can get it in the UK at B&Q, or any decent hardware store.
It is mostly dichloromethane, with a bit of methanol, in a gel base so it
doesn't run all over the place.
The tricky bit of de-potting epoxy encrusted circuitry is that many
component packages (or value labels) will also be eaten by the chemical
removing the resin, as well as the epoxy holding the fibreglass in the PCB
together.
Proceed with caution.
This is mostly useful for reverse engineering a circuit you don't expect to
put back together.

Cheers,
Colin f