Juan, Brian's recommendation about solvents are good and should work much better than IPA when you use them to clean your assemblies immediately after soldering. However, our experience suggests that once you "decharacterize" (i.e., change the characteristic of the residue by making it insoluble) and try cleaning it with IPA it sticks to a surface and can't be dissolved off the surface with any useful solvent. It needs to be "wash" away by mechanical action (i.e., float it off the surface and then rinse it away with flowing solvent). Here's what I do: 1. If I already have "White Residue" I'd use the removal process I described. 2. I'd put some effort into trying to prevent flux from getting into the connectors so I wouldn't have to clean them. 3. If I couldn't prevent flux from getting into the connectors I would use the solvents Brian recommended with as much mechanical washing action as possible and I would not clean using IPA Regards, George George M. Wenger Reliability / FMA Engineer Base Station and Subsystems Group Andrew Corporation, 40 Technology Drive, Warren, NJ 07059 (908) 546-4531 [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Juan T. Marugán Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 7:23 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Cleaning rosin flux residues Thank you all for your suggestions, Brian, the flux we are using is Alphametals 615-15 (ROL1) and I agree with you that the best action will be prevention. But now, to change all the connectors is not possible. So, we need to clean... We have tried to carry out the method proposed by George and although it works, we would like not add more rosin flux (the assembly is very complex) We know that IPA is not the best solution but it is a standard product. 141-b can damage other parts of the unit (by the way, I suppose that our company doesn't purchase it in the black market) The new products suggested by Brian should be qualified before use in the process, and the "time flies"... Brian, can you recommend us other solution (easy to purchase, not toxic enough...)? I'm probably asking for a miracle. Thank you again Juan --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged, proprietary, or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any unauthorized use of this email is prohibited. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [mf2] --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------