I've never heard any warnings against "soap and water" cleaning of assembled PC
boards so long as one takes pains to remove the "soap" (it's usually something
much stronger, like TSP) and thoroughly drying the board before using it. If
you use solvents to dissolve the flux residue on the board, it simply spreads it
unless you have a large immersion system, so soap and water is used to remove
the residue. You then have to remove the soap residue, and, since dishwashers
don't heat the boards any more than normal operation under worst-case
conditions, you won't damage 'em with the dishwasher.
I would suppress the "DRY" cycle, though.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw_at_mesanet.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2001 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: [PDP8-Lovers] how to clean a PDP8/A, dishwasher?
> On Sat, 15 Dec 2001, Boatman on the River of Suck wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 14 Dec 2001, Mark Crispin wrote:
> >
> > > I am appalled that anyone would seriously consider putting any electronic
> > > equipment, much less antiques, in a dishwasher.
> >
> > Are you kidding? Have you been to the manufacturing line of a large
> > systems manufacturer (I've been to several)? They wash boards down with
> > water over and over again in the manufacturing process? You can't hurt
> > boards with water, as long as you dry them off before you turn them back
> > on again, and you don't use soap. All my MicroVAXen have been through the
> > dishwasher at least once.
> >
> > Peace... Sridhar
> >
> >
>
> Be careful about dishwashers and _old_ electronics: (pre Epoxy B) silicone
> IC packages (usually gray 70s vintage) are very succeptable to damage from
> moisture incursion --> corrosion. That being said, I wash (newer) circuit
> cards all the time in hot water, a little detergent, and a toothbrush.
>
> Actually a lot of the new soldering processes for the surface mount stuff
> we do use a water based flux, and are water washed as the standard
> processing...
>
>
> Peter Wallace
>
>
Received on Sat Dec 15 2001 - 10:12:00 GMT