Are all solder brands equal? (except obviously dodgy stuff)

[coppercone2]

you need ultrasonic to get in there, and high quality flux-off solvent. expensive. The flux cans kinda of work if you soak it and hold the board so it drips off a corner to get under a chip but you really need ultrasound and submersion to get in there good, then figure out the times you need by basically making a test board and desoldering to see if its clean when you lift the part with just hot air, or mechanically rip it off (chisel) if you are soldering bogus parts

that is an annoying tuned process, imo don't bother with the varnish unless its on a inductor..

I never bothered to get that heavy into it, looks clean is good enough for me. the only time I would bother is with electrometer circuits, and even that I noticed like my keithley electrometer, I sprayed some deoxit on a switch willy nilly and it aint do nothing, some got on the precision resistors. I have been meaning to clean it one day but I tried some basic tests and its fine. But the thing is, I would make a electrometer circuit with all through hole or dead bug, I would not bother using SMD there, so I will probobly never have to go to such lengths to clean a PCB unless someone specifies it for some thing

I would say its kinda expensive to get stuff really clean from flux.