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] ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################