Alexander wrote:

I solder (wave) reguraly some PCB's.
After soldering the PCB's are "greasy".
I have tried brushing this off with a clean ESD-safe brush. but all
this
did
was putting the grease on another spot off the PCB and leave some
brushstripes.
The same with all PCB-cleaners I have tried, some work well if you
clean
the
PCB afterwards with some cloth. Unfortunatly not all produceb PCB's
can
be
cleaned with cloth.

Does anyone have a solution for this problem.

I thought of a cleaner which cleans the PCB and dries up in powder.
But
I
haven't found one.


I gather you want a cleaning fluid, yet say youve tried everything:
either they arent both true, or else youre out of luck.

Re drying cleaners, I guess you could make your own with clay and
solvent. The solvent mobilises the grease, the clay soaks it up, the
solvent dries out, and the clay falls or brushes off.
Clay: use heavyweight cat litter, crushed. Chalk might also work.
Solvent: whatevers working with your particular grease. It might help
if you told us what this grease was like, and where specifically it was
deposited.


Re the dishwashing option, in principle its possible to leave out the
water sensitive parts such as relays, covering their pads by hand, wave
solder, clean, then solder the remaining parts in by hand. I did this
years ago, though I can understand wanting a faster method.

I would first look for the source of the grease. Is it heatsink
compound? Goo from the ends of reeled component wires? How its
distributed on the PCB would give some clues.


NT