Solder resin clean up?

[pickdropper]

Anyone tried the CRC quick-dry Electronics Cleaner?

Also, a guy on YouTube says most flux remover is simply 50/50 Alcohol and Acetone.  Really cheap if you want to make some yourself apparently...

The guy on YouTube isn't correct.  It's possible some of them are, but certainly not all.  The MG Chemicals stuff linked to above is actually a mix of denatured alcohol, isopropanol and ethyl acetate.  I looked up some others and there was some even funkier stuff in there; there isn't a single recipe.

I'd be a little nervous using acetone to clean boards, but who knows.

Apparently, years ago the flux removers were REALLY effective, largely due to very nasty solvents (this is true with old contact cleaners as well).  Cleaners that worked so well that they were simply to die from.

[m-Kresol]

Do you want me to give my solvent cabinet a go and find the one solvent to clean them all?

[pickdropper]

Yeah, some of these are nasty.  I looked up Chemtronics Flux-Off, which I use at work.  It works great.  Here's why:

methylpentane
difluoroethane
methylpentane
dimethylbutane
dimethylbutane
ethanol
Isopropyl alcohol
Carbon dioxide
n-hexane

Some pretty nasty stuff, there. N-hexane is most famous for being the chemical that poisoned the workes in China making iPhones

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12550429

I'm not sure what the big deal is.  When I've used it, I've never passed out for more than a few hours.   

[m-Kresol]

I'm working with hexane on a daily basis. There is a lot worse, but hexane is not too much fun to work with. It's very volatile and potentially neurotoxic (not sure yet, but likely). The volatility makes it dangerous, especially if you do not have the appropriate ventilation system, which was most likely the case in china.
It's still widely used because it's cheap and dissolves apolar substances like grease. If you have the right facilities to handle these compounds it's not a big deal actually.

[rullywowr]

I use isopropyl and simple green. First ISO then Simple Green. Works good.

[wgc]

Isopropyl and a detergent should work great, should have thought of that. The auto cleaner we had was basically a saponifier and rinse and dry.

Prior to that, the magic cleaner was freon.

Acetone btw will usually take ink or silkscreen off pretty quick.

[Justus]

The only thing I've actually used (just saw the YouTube video yesterday actually) is plain alcohol wipes.  They can be had for dirt cheap.




One or two wipes per board usually does the trick well enough.  I was using "no-clean" flux solder anyway, but since it's been tougher to work with I just switched to Kester 285, which has RMA flux - seemingly an inbetweener, not as harsh as activated rosin, not perfectly no-clean.  I haven't actually used it yet, having just got it in the mail recently, but I'm looking forward to better results.