Hi all,

This is a little bit off-the-wall, and maybe sounds a bit cheap, but I'm
going to ask anyway...

We have a inline water soluble cleaner (an Electrovert H-500) that is located
at one end of the plant. Problem is, that at the other end of the plant there
is hand soldering (rework and touch-up) being done. As probably many of you
have learned, operators don't want to make the trip all the way down to the
other end of the plant to get their boards cleaned until they have a rack of
boards that will make the trip worthwhile... which is understandable from a
purely logistics point of view. But that sometimes results in the flux
residues being left on the boards longer than what is desired.

So the idea was brought up to get a couple of small batch cleaners closer to
the area so that it would be so much of a trek to get the boards cleaned in a
timely manner.

Sounds like a good idea. My question is, most of the batch cleaners I've seen
are glorified dishwashers. When you price these units you find that they are
much, much more expensive than a dishwasher, but the operating systems are
basically the same. I did a search for commercial dishwashers and can find
nice beefy stainless constructed ones that have heated wash and rinse cycles,
decent powered pumps, that are a third of the price that some of
"specifically designed for printed circuit cleaning" washers cost.

The wash nozzles are basically the same, rotating wands. Rack systems are the
same, roll-in, roll-out racks that look very similar to what I've seen in
every dishwasher I've ever had in my home.

So my question is, has anybody ever had a real dishwasher in use to clean
water soluble residues? We will supply DI water to them straight from the
resin beds, and will be able to set appropiate cycle times to ensure thorough
cleaning.

From my take on things, this should work pretty good without having to spend
a bunch of money on a machine that can be had for much cheaper and not
actually called "A printed circuit assembly batch aqueous cleaner"...

Any comments?

-Steve Gregory-

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