An Assessment of Cleaning Options for Soldered Electronic Assemblies (Phase II)

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Abstract
With the advent of the Montreal Protocol, the removal of flux residues from printed circuit assemblies using solvents based on CFC‐113 is no longer an acceptable option. An alternative range of cleaning technologies is being developed and marketed for this purpose, and the aim of this work was to study the efficiency of a variety of these alternative cleaning regimes after IR reflow soldering. The results indicated that: (i) all the cleaning regimes were capable of removing flux and flux residues after standard IR reflow soldering; (ii) as the level of flux contamination under the components increased, the ability of the cleaning regimes to clean the boards decreased; (iii) the cleaning regimes had varying problems in removing the flux residues after the non‐standard (overheat) IR profile processing; (iv) when additional flux is introduced under the components (i.e., non‐standard IR reflow), the delay between soldering and cleaning becomes important; and (v) the cleaning regimes exhibited a wide variation in their ability to clean under components with small stand‐off heights.

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