colophony as pcb protection - long term?
2005-01-30 by Stefan Trethan
I have recently bought a can of "l\ufffdtlack" made by kontakt chemie / crc industries germany. The text on the can tells me it is colophony, and the smell tells me it is solved in alcohol. I didn't know before buying, and hoped it would be less tacky than the homebrew colophony solved in alcohol brush-on. Well, it isn't, but better slightly tacky than corroded. What i wonder, what is the long-term experience with this sort of resin coating on a PCB? Can i leave it on with no worries? Are there other products that are as solderable but less tacky? I know i could leave the PCB uncoated until after soldering, and use a plastic spray, but it seems incredibly practical to just spray the fresh PCB and not worry about corrosion, and having the added benefit of a flux. Spraying over the colophony with acrylic to stop the tackyness seems like a bad idea. But i don't want to clean it off (that tends to be so messy and wastes loads of alcohol). ST