Ron,
     There are a few IPC publications covering cleaning of PCB's.
IPC-SC-60, IPC-SA-61 and IPC-AC-62A are handbooks covering solvent,
semiaqueous, and aqueous cleaning respectively. There is another
publication IPC-CH-65 which provides cleaning guidelines. It gives
some guidelines on component to board clearance. It says that if you
have an aqueous cleaning system using pure water 0.012 inch is the
minimum recommended clearance. If you use a detergent , 0.010 inch. If
you use power sprays/ hot air knives possible further reduction of 40%.
Some solvent systems may reduce minimum clearance to the order of 0.005
inch.
Basically, the clearance is dependant on your cleaning system. We now use
mainly no clean which removes this problem.

Regards,  Evan                   Internet: [log in to unmask]
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