3 ms·
That's fine, I like them that way too! But as a hobbyist, you risk leaving corrosive salts on the board or worse, sloshing them into electromechanical parts li
by buescher 6y ago
That's fine, I like them that way too! But as a hobbyist, you risk leaving corrosive salts on the board or worse, sloshing them into electromechanical parts like switches, pots, unsealed relays, sounders, etc. Getting to "pristine" is harder than a lot of people think. There's a vicious cycle in production where assemblers will use too much flux, get flagged in an IPC-610 evaluation, try to clean the boards, and then get flagged for high ionic contamination in the next evaluation. You can't see the salts you leave behind from incomplete cleaning.
Beginners should not ever clean flux. Most hobbyists should never need to clean flux. Professionals should have data driving any decision to clean flux.
- lmilcin 6y agoFortunately, I rarely risk anything if the board fails. And if it does I always try to understand what caused the failure. I never considered flux compatibility between my solder rosin core and the flux paste and never considered measuring salt residues on the board. I almost exclusively use the same Kester sn64pb37 rosin core solder and MG Chemicals #8342 RA rosin flux paste. Both must be cleaned promptly. Now, I don't bother cleaning if I don't intend to use the board after I test it (like when I do prototyping) but anything else gets a thorough wash. I use various PCB cleaners, typically ethanol (not IPA!) based and then rinse boards in electronic water. I never saw any oxidation on any of the traces unless there was some external contamination.