Unfortunately, it is easier to convince the production folks NOT to clean "no-clean" flux off the board than it is to convince a customer who wants to be able to eat off the surface of his/her board... Yes, I know that these customers should never have expected a bright, shiny assembly after soldering with no-clean, but the marketing folks made promises... Now it's up to us to figure out the best way to make that happen. I can't begin to tell you how many hours we've spent trying to meet a customer's expectations in this regard - when those expectations should never have existed in the first place with a no-clean process.

Dale Ritzen, CQA
Quality Manager/ISO Management Representative
Austin Manufacturing Services


-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian Ellis
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 2:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] flux and board cleaning issues

Alcohol is not a good solvent for flux removal. You may remove some rosin but most of the dangerous ionic residues, especially metallic salts from the reaction between the flux and oxides will remain untouched. If you cannot find a better solution, you would be better off not cleaning a mild or "no-clean" flux residue.

Brian

Wilson, Bob wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a lead who is an IPC J-STD-001 certified trainer and she is
> very good.  We are using a board assembly that has a nut plate under a
> high-density 26-pin DSUB.
>
> The girls were soaking the assemblies in an alcohol bath and the lead
> assembler said she didn't want the boards soaked in alcohol because it
> isn't 100% guaranteed to remove all the flux from under the connector
> or nut plate.
>
> She has the girls trying to get a brush under there to get the flux out.
>
> Am I nuts or have I been under the wrong impression that alcohol and
> compressed air is the best way to clean a fluxed board?  I hate the
> idea of me saying something like, "But...but that's the way we've
> always done it!"
>
> (I don't have J-STD-001 here on the design side).
>
> Thanks a bunch.
>
> Bob Wilson
>
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