cleaning the gunk of circuits including the flux after soldering

[G7PSK]

It used to be possible to get "washing alcohol" when I lived in Cambridge I had a friend who worked in the Cavendish laboratory, he would analyse each delivery of the alcohol that was used to wash the glassware to see if it was pure ethyl or was methyl or contained methyl alcohol. if it was pure ethyl he would make gin or vodka out of some of it. 

[peter.mitchell]

I use this stuff http://www.crcindustries.com.au/co-contact-cleaner1

Seems to do the job quite good, kinda expensive for what it does though. IPA + a toothbrush works well too.

[AndyC_772]

Flux off!

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp;jsessionid=3X3E2KBWZL4AOCQLCIPZMMQ?N=0&Ntk=gensearch&Ntt=flux+off&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&exposeLevel2Refinement=true&suggestions=false&ref=globalsearch&_requestid=377743

[peter.mitchell]

Flux off!

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp;jsessionid=3X3E2KBWZL4AOCQLCIPZMMQ?N=0&Ntk=gensearch&Ntt=flux+off&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&exposeLevel2Refinement=true&suggestions=false&ref=globalsearch&_requestid=377743

WHAT THE FLUX?!

[MacAttak]

Just curious - but how well would white lightning work? Aka, Moonshine?

Isn't it pretty much 95% ethyl plus a splash of H2O?

Obviously, a bit on the expensive side as compared to other options.

[cwalex]

Just curious - but how well would white lightning work? Aka, Moonshine?

Isn't it pretty much 95% ethyl plus a splash of H2O?

Obviously, a bit on the expensive side as compared to other options.

wouldn't you be better off just buying methylated spirits? The bottle I got from the supermarket has written on the bottle 95% alcohol 5% water. It is probably not going to have as much impurities and it only cost a couple of bucks for a litre.

[Corporate666]

Some years ago I bought a piece of equipment from a relatively large local electronics company.  They tried various different options, and they found the best thing was regular commercial dishwashers.  The owner (who was the one I was talking to and bought the equipment from) told me they added something to help cleaning off rosin flux, but that water soluble flux worked great with regular dish washing soap.  I saw the boards, they looked impeccable.

[Psi]

The "dish washing soap" was probably the stuff used for washing dishes by hand.

Typical dish washing powder is extremely corrosive, i wouldn't want to use it on a PCB.

[ddavidebor]

Just curious - but how well would white lightning work? Aka, Moonshine?

Isn't it pretty much 95% ethyl plus a splash of H2O?

Obviously, a bit on the expensive side as compared to other options.

wouldn't you be better off just buying methylated spirits? The bottle I got from the supermarket has written on the bottle 95% alcohol 5% water. It is probably not going to have as much impurities and it only cost a couple of bucks for a litre.

Of course, is very pure.
The only impurities are the denaturant, but it's not a problem.

[SeanB]

Triple distilled works well, just need to make sure the condenser pipe is very clean ( 316 stainless that has been pickled and rinsed well works best) and is not contaminating the final distillation. You can get up to 98% pure alcohol that way. You can buy it as an industrial solvent, though there is a massive excise duty on it. The duty is more than the cost of the white spirit.

[lewis]

I Googled 'PCB Cleaning Machine' and found this: http://www.blundell.co.uk/products/cleaning/pcb-cleaning/system1000/. It looks exactly the same as our workshop tabletop dishwasher. I wonder....

[SeanB]

Using an existing unit and modifying it is very common, though it may bite you if the original supplier discontinues the unit without notice, and there are no longer spares available. Very common on low volume equipment.