Hi,

        Kerosene will remove the wax, It will desolve it, I have been
cleaning remote control units of wax in this way for some time. We then
flush this off with IPA. Seems to work well. However be very careful that it
wont damage any components on your PBAs befrore you get too carried away, It
doesnt seem to affect chip componenst such as resistor and caps, Or for that
matter transistors in SOT 23 paks. I have no idea how it might affect
anything else though. Are you sure it's the wax causing trouble??  I've not
had quite as much experiance (about five years on and off) but I've not seen
this happen on any of the remote boards I've fixed. Indeed the solderwave
machine at work uses a wax covering to inhibit dross and we have had no
problems with that contaminating the solder. My sugesting is that the
contact cement may be wholly to blame. I have been soldering through wax for
some time now and not had any recuring joint troubles. Driver transistors
are the most comman form of falure in the Remote control cars I service, and
they face a variety of hostile contaminants. Unfuatunatly the only way I can
think of to reliably resolder these conection would be to use a solder wave
machine, NOT a cheap option really though.


----- Original Message -----
From: Earl A. Pruitt <[log in to unmask]>

> I am an electronics tech servicing 10+ year old amateur radio gear.  The
> trouble I am having is with a single sided through-hole board.  Areas of
> the board are covered with wax.  Over time the boards malfunction as the
> wax works its way into the solder.  Hand resoldering is a nightmare as the
> wax continues to wick towards the connection.  Heating the board and
> draining the wax away does not help as some wax residue is left.  Also,
> components become damaged from the air gun.  The boards are also covered
> in contact cement that has become corrosive and conductive.  Currently we
> are using Methaline Chloride to soften the glue and then pick it away.
> Questions are as follows: 1) How can the wax be completely removed? 2) How
> can the glue be removed without using such a toxic substance as paint
> stripper? 3) Is there an economical device that can be purchased to reflow
> these old boards without hand resoldering hundreds of cold/contaminated
> connections?  Any help would be greatly appreciated

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