When Should I Clean Electronics After Soldering?
After you have repaired a circuit board, you need to decide whether a cleaning step is necessary.
If the functioning of the final electronic device isn’t life-and-death and isn’t required to run for decades, you might be able to leave no-clean flux on the PCB.
As long as all the flux is brought up to soldering temperature and fully activated, you should be fine.
If the aesthetics of the circuit board is important, you can clean the clear flux residues with a flux remover.
For mission critical electronics, like in medical devices or aircraft, you should clean no matter what type of flux you are using.
R, RA, RMA, or aqueous fluxes should always be removed after soldering.
These fluxes leave ionic residue behind after soldering. This can lead to board failure because dendrites can form when moisture from the air comes into contact with the live PCB.
Dendrites are branches that form between conductive surfaces, and cause current leakage or even short circuits.
Flux contamination can also bring in ambient moisture that causes oxidation on leads and contacts.
If conformal coating is going to be applied, cleaning is all the more important, no matter what flux you use.
Imagine painting the outside of your house without first cleaning. The paint would just peel off once it’s dry. For conformal coating, that’s called “delamination”, and it’s a significant defect for critical electronics.
So turn to Techspray Flux Removers for your critical circuit board cleaning.
Contact Techspray today, so a technical specialist can guide you to the best flux remover for your process.
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