Ed Oscuro wrote:..but the writing isn't giving me too much confidence in one thing or another.
Very true, but it's to show that there are alternatives that others recommend. Again, I still don't recommend acid, but I keep hearing it around even from experts.
Ed Oscuro wrote:Hooray for isopropyl!
Yup yup!
IPA all the way. Advice from a trusted Intel Manufacturing employee.
I'm looking to buy a really cheap board to try this on. Do make sure to keep your boards unplugged for a while to have those capacitors discharge first! After I give it a run, I'll let you know how it goes.
pcb_revival wrote:
Or you could throw your dirty pcb in the domestic dishwasher - like some people do - threads available.
But make sure you don't put in any soap or salt.
That's crazy. Heat would kill the board.
That's ridiculous. Does your dishwasher clean your dishes at 600F? Well, that's what the components were subject to when they were soldered to the PCB (save the socketed IC's, but if you check the data sheets for them, they can handle the heat any dishwasher could ever put out).
As I think someone already mentioned, your main concern is parts that can rust. You can wash boards with parts that rust, you just need to blow them off with high pressure air or leave them out in the hot sun (be sure and cover the UV windows on any IC's).
-ud
I went the washing route once; never again, for the reason of unintentionally rusting the bejeezus outta stuff (I'm not big on removing and reseating chips, WHUPZ I just broke a leg!), but I did it on a couple of my first two boards (just cheap ones). It's not worth it just to get off a little bit of harmless dust rly.
Another point might be the jamma connector on the PCB. I mean with time the more you will plug and unplug it the more the pins will suffer. The same issue happens with some old cartidge console games you have to insert a few times before they boot. Thanks that most of the time we do not swapp PCBs as often as console games.
Last weeks I was considering the idea of making me a few jamma extends for some of my boards in order to keep their pins as clean as possible.
