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December 1998

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Subject:
From:
Eric Higbie <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
TechNet E-Mail Forum.
Date:
Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:21:40 -0500
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While cleaning out my desk I ran across this story that I had written
when a large part of my job was performing the IPC Phase II evaluations
of Freon replacement solvents.  Hope everyone has a prosperous 1999.

The Life and Times of a Circuit Board Cleaner

In the beginning there were flammable and toxic solvents.  These were
used to clean circuit boards, and everyone was happy.  Then some smart
fellas from Du Pont discovered Freon.  Folks started using this new
fangled high tech stuff to clean circuit boards.  The old timers who
still clung to the toxic and flammable solvents toxic and flammable
solvents just laughed and laughed at the new stuff.  One old timer named

Cletus said, "That new stuff will never clean as good as benzene does"
as he stuck his entire arm in a vat of benzene.  Well, all the old
timers eventually died long protracted agonizing deaths from cancer.
This left the market wide open for those slick haired, suit wearing Du
Pont Salesmen.  Our stuff's non-toxic, non-flammable, and cleans like
the dickens.  Soon everyone was using Freon.  Everywhere ya looked there

was a degreaser with Freon in it.  The stuff cleaned grease, flux,
clothes, by gumby, there's nothing that can't be cleaned with Freon.
Everyone was happy, we could clean car parts, circuit boards, clothes,
and everything else under the sun in one machine.

Well, one day when everyone was happily cleaning things in their
degreasers, Jeremy Rifkin started singing "There's a hole in the ozone,
dear Elijah, dear Elijah, there's a hole in the ozone, Dear DuPont, a
hole".  And before those slick haired, suit wearin', rich boys from
DuPont could sing "Well fix it dear Jeremy, dear Jeremy, ...."  Jeremy
started singing "The hole's getting bigger, dear DuPont, dear
DuPont.....". This song inspired the leaders of the world to have a
meeting in Montreal.  All of these great leaders talked about sheep with

cataracts, and Mexican hairless dogs with melanomas.  In unison, the
leaders said "No more chloro-fluoro carbons", and so it was.

A new set of "old-timers" ran around saying the sky was falling.  "Our
circuit boards will all corrode into house insulations if we can't clean

them in Freon" they screeched.  Well, a whole mess of people and
companies rushed into the circuit board cleaning market like sooners
into the Oklahomy territory.  One group of slick haired, suit wearing,
orange suckin' guys said, "we can clean circuit boards with orange
squeezin's.  The phone company got a hold of some of those squeezins and

put ‘em in a big machine and called it "underbrush" cleaning.  Well, I
don't know, if that Underbrush character is anything like Underdog, the
problems might just be licked.

       Eric Higbie, [log in to unmask]

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