Forrest Christian wrote:
> Reading all of the flux effects thread made me start to re-think about 
> cleaning the flux residue off of the boards I make on the small assembly 
> line I have here.  I currently use no-clean flux which is cleanable with 
> water if so desired.  But I generally don't do any cleaning.
> 
> I understand that a dishwasher can be a good tool for this (and is a 
> fairly common fixture for short production runs).
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone has used a dishwasher for this and can tell me 
> the do's, don'ts and gotchas?
> 
> Also, several sources indicate that you really want to use deionized 
> water for the cleaning.  I can understand that the reason behind this is 
> that you want to avoid putting worse things (from the water) on the 
> board than you are taking off.   With that in mind, is there a good 
> filter I can buy which will do a good enough job to be able to provide a 
> source of water for the dishwasher? 
> 
> -forrest

I have not used a dishwasher like this but assembly houses I've used 
certainly did.  They ranged from 2 ladies in a garage using a portable, 
roll-around unit from Sears to one that ran XP and had a network 
connection and made it's own DI water.

Anything in your water will remain behind when the water evaporates; you 
must decide yourself based on your local water quality what will work here.

I experienced 2 gotchas:
One assembly house refused to read written instructions concerning first 
washing the boards and only then soldering on a backup battery.  The 
battery, as small as it was, corroded traces and so on.

The other problem came not from using a washer system but from not using 
it; another assembly house forgot to wash a BGA part.  Later, it became 
terribly flaky due to the flux residue.  Water soluble fluxes 
*absolutely* must be removed.

Which brings up a question: what kind of no-clean flux do you have that 
also will wash off with water?  The stuff we have here does not do so.
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