Dave Platt wrote:
In article ,
Jim Adney wrote:

I have a friend who tells of starting his cleaning process by running
his boards thru the wash cycle of his kitchen dishwasher, with soap.

Bob Pease swears by this process. He writes (in "Troubleshooting
Analog Circuits", a book I most strongly recommend) that when he's
working on PC-board circuits which require low leakage currents, he'll
run 'em through the dishwasher, standard cycle, using a normal load of
Calgonite detergent. When the wash and rinse are complete, he takes
them out, raps/shakes/blows off the rinse water, and stacks them in
the dishstrainer to dry.

He says that this process results in lower board-leakage currents than
the more traditional PC-board cleaning processes which use organic
solvents.

I believe that the use of Calgonite is significant - I looked it up
and found that it contains surfactants and calcium metasilicate, and
is significantly alkaline, but it does not contain chlorine. Other
powdered dish detergents (e.g. Cascade) do contain chlorine, and I
suspect that they might corrode components on a circuit board.

I have to side with Bob Pease. Over the years of reading his column in
Electronic Design, and stuff in NSC's data books, he has had tons of
experience with analog and is usually dead on. He was behind the now
classic 'Floobydust' data book back in 1977. Back then everything was
washed in a freon solvent tank but times have changed, no more freon
tanks, Lead is being banned, etc.
I never dismiss his stuff as rambling since he almost always puts in a
nugget or two.
Bill Baka