rinse pump thing

[coppercone2]

I use ultrasonic with chemtronics flux remover for flux removal (aqueous) and you need to rinse the boards out when you are done.

I wanted some kind of reliable 'thing' (small) that can squirt distilled water to rinse things. Did anyone find a good reliable option? Almost like a mini pressure washer type deal. So I can squirt it under chips, I think it should still be 'sprayed' even after a dunk in distilled water.

A dental pick is kinda what I am after but its a bit too small. The handheld drill thing seems a bit big. The garden sprayer thing is too weak (its OK for getting soap on for scrubing or something but its not a 'power wash'.

I would need a recommendation from someone  that has something that 'works good' for circuit cards. And I mean like getting under SMT chips and stuff that its pretty tight, you need a substantial pressure.

Do they have some dental pick made for a horse? For SMT I do do a water rinse in the ultrasonic, but I suspect nothing quite 'gets at it' like a stream of water.

What I have been doing is 'blasting' under the chips with a alcohol spray (can), but its smelly and wasteful.

I wonder if I can just get one of those pressurizable aeresol cans and fill it with water... hmm. I want to displace any liquid stuck under chips with clean liquid.

[Rat_Patrol]

My recommendation was those pressurize-able you-fill-it-with-random-stuff cans.

I use a "collection tank" for RO on my RO/DI system, which gives you water pressure, and then you just need a small nozzle to get velocity like any other sprayer.

[Ian.M]

I wouldn't trust a pump-up or externally pressurised refillable spray can not to corrode internally if used for distilled/deionised water.  Maybe if you can get the inside fully dry and blow plenty of air through the nozzle after use each time it will be OK.
Why not consider a small hand-held pump-up garden sprayer? e.g. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08PP1ZVCQ or similar.  They are designed for water and expected to survive use with corrosive fertilisers etc. so with pure water in it should be OK if you don't empty it every time

[adx]

Not specifically for boards, but the garden sprayer may be worth another look, I use them, pumped up until the pressure valve releases, I think it's something like 40psi which is quite a lot, and they hold plenty of DI water (or filtered dehumidifier, rain etc). It's the convenience and not always running out.

If the ultrasonic has truly done its job then there won't be attached debris under chips so even a 0.1mm or 50 micron gap shouldn't need a massive pressure (but you'd have to test by pulling some off).

Ordinary aerosol cans are quite easy to refill and top off with an air compressor. Probably best not to do that with alcohol though! Wouldn't trust it with DI.

Pre-post update: I see others have beaten me to it!

[jpanhalt]

That flux remover from Chemtronics contains "<= 3.9% " disodium metasilicate, which is non-volatile.  Other varieties use ethanol amine, which is volatile.  That's what I use.  I do not pressure wash with water per se.  I rinse under a faucet, then in an ultrasonic with distilled water and blow dry with compressed air.  There Is no visible film or residue.  You might want to consider a flux remover that is volatile.

[coppercone2]

Oh yeah those garden sprayers that you pump. I meant the tiny battery powered one.

Oh yeah I might have one of those I forgot about it behind the shed


and it would be useful for other stuff like cleaning the holes in parts that got washed in normal soap (mechanical) so its not just a question of the right flux remover.

My hands started to hurt from using those cheap spray gun things like on cleaning bottles, I wanna get away from that, I think its ergonomics are bad all around. I think over the years they can damage your joints or bones or something


They have battery powered super soakers now too, that might work lol. I think that maybe a good 'baseline' for this design would be something akin to a windshield washer pump.

[Rat_Patrol]

For you guys using the garden sprayers, the built in air pumps are grease lubricated. Though the grease/oil should be on top of the water, possible contamination could be a thing I think. Ever have any issues with this?

[coppercone2]

damn I knew it, it was too good to be true lol

The little battery one is perestalic. But its kinda weak.

It sounds like I need to buy one of those little refillable cans and fill it with the nitrogen tank. I would buy it right now if I did not have so much holiday fail going on

[adx]

For you guys using the garden sprayers, the built in air pumps are grease lubricated. Though the grease/oil should be on top of the water, possible contamination could be a thing I think. Ever have any issues with this?

Not per se, I'm aware there'd be little flecks of grease or oil getting into the water, also the trigger valve is lubricated (and sealed) with grease. It's the type of grease that is compatible with plastic and for most boards or things I wouldn't worry about microscopic traces. Even on optical surfaces, not noticed. Clean it out well with tap water first, give it a good shake up. BTW the garden sprayers I use are the ones with the little hose. I use one of those cheap TDS meters to get the water down to 0 ppm (ie, <1 on the screen), though dissolved CO2 from our glorious 400ppm air can show up to 4?

Those bent "snork" rinse bottles pulse the water out the tip somewhat violently from water hammer, which I wistfully hope gets in small spaces, but it's not strong enough to do much cleaning.

Compare this to a client I had an argument with once who didn't want to wash boards with a precision DC A/D on it to the point I was "let go" on the spot (I had had enough by then, told them to call me when they needed me, maybe they were washing but leaving to air dry, argument was "if it looks clean it is clean"). A couple of weeks later I got the sheepish call, went in and they were failing on the jig. They showed me to the washing process where boards were soaking in some cleaner they had found, and asked me if it was normal for the electros to be fizzing (from the exposed aluminium tops). I said "um" and was shown to the 5L containers of the cleaner, read the small print and saw x g/L sodium hydroxide. They were leaving them to air dry. Then conformal coating them. "Um" indeed. They did the same thing a few years later, running them through a dishwasher, and had decided to use caustic dishwasher powder, to really bake it in there. The boards were conductive, and no amount of stripping the coating or rinse would fix it (from memory this was worse, and had us all stumped, until I went and checked what they were doing). Was actually an ok place to work, but sometimes "startup culture" fails spectacularly despite best of intentions.

[coppercone2]

Damn you sound like a diplomat going back to that shit

if you got that 'skill' i would think you can make 2 times more money doing 'public facing' work

When i see that kind of stuff I always think... if this can happen... what is the next thing that's gonna happen with that idiot. Like that is the kind of person that inspects and certifies unsafe stuff that fails spectacularly because the inspection criterion did not assume massive ignorance. I am imagining like a 2000 gallon tank spilling out cuz they asked him about 'something strange' and hes like oh yeah the surface is bubbling because its anodizing the steel no worries mate. that board going to fix the space station yeah the capacitor is just self healing after the bake out no worries about the green glowing slime, glowing resistor is just annealing itself

well I guess he might get SOME credit for figuring to ask about if something should be 'bubbling' lol

[Ian.M]

For you guys using the garden sprayers, the built in air pumps are grease lubricated. Though the grease/oil should be on top of the water, possible contamination could be a thing I think. Ever have any issues with this?

Good point.   I generally use the trigger pump sprayers, and they are minimally lubricated so I've never had an issue, but if the pump-up manufacturer has been excessive with the grease, I can see that could be a big problem.   Maybe strip the pump down before first use and wipe up excess grease, leaving just enough on the piston seal for smooth motion and good sealing to the bore, then run a couple of fills of water through it, shaking vigorously at half-full to clear out any loose globs of grease, which should minimise the risk of grease getting carried over.  The down-side is you will need to service the pump more frequently to minimally re-grease it whenever you notice its starting to get a little stiff.   If you need absolutely no risk of grease contamination, the pump-up sprayer isn't a good option.   

[jpanhalt]

Compare this to a client I had an argument with once who didn't want to wash boards with a precision DC A/D on it to the point I was "let go" on the spot (I had had enough by then, told them to call me when they needed me, maybe they were washing but leaving to air dry, argument was "if it looks clean it is clean"). A couple of weeks later I got the sheepish call, went in and they were failing on the jig. They showed me to the washing process where boards were soaking in some cleaner they had found, and asked me if it was normal for the electros to be fizzing (from the exposed aluminium tops). I said "um" and was shown to the 5L containers of the cleaner, read the small print and saw x g/L sodium hydroxide. They were leaving them to air dry. Then conformal coating them. "Um" indeed. They did the same thing a few years later, running them through a dishwasher, and had decided to use caustic dishwasher powder, to really bake it in there. The boards were conductive, and no amount of stripping the coating or rinse would fix it (from memory this was worse, and had us all stumped, until I went and checked what they were doing). Was actually an ok place to work, but sometimes "startup culture" fails spectacularly despite best of intentions.

Nice anecdote.  I hadn't thought of etching the aluminum electrolytics.  At least aluminum oxide is an electrical insulator.

As mentioned earlier, the flux remover being used by coppercone2 has sodium metasilicate as its saponifier.  It is certainly effective for doing that, but it is not far from a mixture of NaOH and fine silica.  It can affect aluminum just as TSP can do.  Aluminum reacts with both acids and strong bases.  It can react with ethanolamine too, but ethanolamine is a much weaker base than sodium silicate.  Moreover, in the water-based volatile flux removers I have used, it is at a much lower concentration than sodium silicate is in the Chemtronic remover apparently being used by coppercone2.

[adx]

Damn you sound like a diplomat going back to that shit

if you got that 'skill' i would think you can make 2 times more money doing 'public facing' work

I got the skill, but not the instinct (or perhaps stomach). I tend to tell the truth at inopportune times, where other people might heed the alarm bells which tell them discretion is the better part of valour. Stuff like saying "so fire me then, but I bet you can't do it right now" which may have been true (not the situation above) but isn't the best way to grease up to the boss! More like half times the money. But that situation above, I was a bit miffed, but remember walking to my car thinking how good it is to be a contractor in those type of situations. I had just effectively been fired, but knew I'd be back for some thing needing doing or fire to put out, and no one would care. The same thing as an employee would have been horrible (then again just being an employee there would have been horrible, possibly). I just didn't know at the time that that thing would be them being bitten badly in the arse by the same thing we'd had the stoush over.

Yeah, it was a bit "what's the idiot going to do next", he was always pulling such shit. But he wasn't a liar (or an idiot really, apart from thinking cleaning a board is like cleaning a floor), so way down on the scale of potential damage. Next up being beguiling sycophants, then ignorant power-wielding idiots (often dumb as a box of rocks, the type one might find in public office) sliding into the extreme personality disorder types one sometimes comes across. Rich tapestry and all that.

... but if the pump-up manufacturer has been excessive with the grease, I can see that could be a big problem.   Maybe strip the pump down before first use and wipe up excess grease, leaving just enough on the piston seal for smooth motion and good sealing to the bore ...

Can confirm they tend to use massive gobs of grease in the pumps, at least in the last one I got (due to having to use my favourite one for various poisoning duties). Enough to take some out and save it for later, this one had a horrible banana shaped bend in it and too much draft in the bore, is probably why. But that part is in air, so probably doesn't make it down to the valve (there is a bit of dead space maybe to limit the compression ratio, or maybe to hold all that grease). The flappit valve is a rubber bung on the outside (at the bottom) dare not touch it (due to the poison) but possibly would seal if it were cleaned of grease. Happens to be sitting only a few m from me, for reasons.

... sodium metasilicate as its saponifier.  It is certainly effective for doing that, but it is not far from a mixture of NaOH and fine silica. ...

Didn't know that. I should whip up some TSP (NaOH and phosphoric acid from mem). One of my holy grail, possibly impractical, cleaning objectives is removing vegetable type greases from plastic without physical agitation or wiping. I thought you could just put detergent in and shake it up. Doesn't work, even alcohols don't (haven't tried methanol, horrible headache-inducing stuff). One thing that did is expired bleach, for reasons unknown. I assumed NaOH but that also doesn't work, then thought maybe the salt is what it needs, still no. Putting something like coffee grounds (or a paper towel) in does, dishwasher style high pressure spraying would (tried that, melted the plastic).

[coppercone2]

TSP is really cheap. Even for small quantities.

Its a worthwhile reagent to have for electrocleaning if you are into that

I don't know how easy phosphate things are, IIRC it likes to make a jelly mess instead of doing what you think it does when you try a reaction with it. It will be labor intensive to get the water out of the reaction once you make it.

I think when they make it, it might be made from phosphorous pentoxide with a minimum of water, so its economical to get TSP prill out of it. I wonder if you can do something like mix dry phosphorous pentoxide with dry hydroxide then add a minimum of water so its well mixed and reacted and less wet then using a 'liquid' phosphoric acid, they must have a way to avoid doing massive distillations. And p2o5 is kinda hard to get and I don't like opening that container... it might even be self drying because of the heat it makes


I hate working with anything that has phosphoric acid. slime chemistry

[adx]

I just made some. You can get it here, but frowned upon and wouldn't be in shops, probably because of beautification (maybe that's eutrophication) of waterways - goes straight out to the sea via ducks swimming in the poo ponds for a few days, so the kind of mindless fear that drives politics here (or anywhere?). I guess people will wash their drives with it, adn end up in the stormwater system (which also has ducks, but those with a weaker constitution or perhaps cloacal tension). Beer brewing shops have it.

It kind of puffed up and ended up pretty dry. This was in my coffee cup (a metal one) with some dribbles of rinse water already there so the NaOH had mostly dissolved by then (not much used for first experiment in case it exploded). 85% Phosphoric (amazingly heavy ~1.7* water seems very strange for a runny liquid, so it's easy to tell which mini jerry can thing is which), hissed when it went on remnant dry sodium hydroxide on the teaspoon but not in the soup. Took about a minute of wiggling around to investigate what was happening and a cake formed, along with an appetite.

It does clean stuff pretty well, just tried margarine but nothing paint-like yet. I should have done it sooner. Looks useful.

I guess mixing 100% phosphoric acid (the monohydrate, ~~30% water, but a solid) with whatever form dry NaOH is, would react (but what I made was both sides wet or pretty much clear liquid and ended up quite dry). I made the mistake of storing NaOH next to boric acid in PET jars, they sensed each others' presence and burrowed holes through the sides (touching) and definitely reacted, caught it just in time to avoid eating through the cupboard (a year or so). It also took out a jar of sodium carbonate that would have probably otherwise been an innocent bystander. There were other acids (citric, oxalic) nearby, but far enough away for it not to find them. This was all dry, I am now wary of it all, but I digress.

Electrocleaning, yes. Polishing, anodising, derusting, plating (eg iron on copper), I'm always putting things in solutions with or without electricity to see what they do. By always, I mean every so often, in bursts of hasty experimentation, between which I usually leave something in acid too long and it literally ends up in solution by the time I've remembered. A world of potential results opened up when I realised dehumidifier water (and then just rain) enables anodising (or film-forming and plasma) and plating to work, where the first few decades of my life had involved sporadic attempts at doing such things with tap water, and always failed (except maybe copper sulphate and copper like at school). Just to tinker, but being able to deal with corrosion on aluminium, or grow a protective film, is useful. So is derusting tools, to a point (rinse and seal is just a lot more practical if aesthetics don't matter).

[coppercone2]

Dear lord, banning soap.

You know what I started to think that if there is something, and there is an alternative available, you can get rich and make a political career by trying to get one banned for whatever reason. I mean you like 'make' a cushy job for yourself by attacking something. You don't need to invent anything or really do anything other then talk shit and find people talking shit and suddenly you are 'well off'.

I am almost certain the people 'frowning' are not soap or environmental experts, they just think they look proper for taking a stance against something that sounds 'science'. So many  god damn opportunists. And the press just gets rich off the 'fight' too. Such an artificial 'show'. Could circus and bread have turned into fearmongering bullshit and promising fixes? The way they document politicians now and how the politicians interact with media its a circus. (and wow I searched circus and bread and even google AI got the modern analogy right. scary)

When I see people 'frowning upon' things I am thinking "so you are just thinking that by frowning upon this you have a chance of having someone agree with you. you have no idea what you are actually doing. its purely for personal gain'. Feels like they are often exploiting 'mob psychology' or something.

I can understand something like being concerned about a contaminated atmosphere in a building, but when you started talking about ducks I am thinking "the fuck is this bull shit" Pure political maneuvering.


And when its dry, its phosphorpous pentoxide, it reacts with moisture very quickly and gets pretty hot. Burned phosphorous. 


Oh yeah, for the electrocleaning, there is a formula with tsp and some other stuff, I made it, but it just makes me gag. I can't take the smell. Its not like acids or something, it just smells really bad. That's why I never did that much with it. I cannot tolerate 'fish smell' one bit, maybe its related to that. But you also need to be like precise with electrochemistry, if you are not starting with pure reagents it will be a stupid mess. It's worse then bread baking... you need to use scales The home made TSP sounds difficult to work with when it needs to be precisely used**

BTW I might sound like a nut, but look at the penalty to national figures (i.e. gdp) caused by freaking corrosion damage. its absurd. People like cleaning corroded metal can easily save thousands of dollars per year and basically change your financial situation sometimes. Its like a big deal when we own such expensive stuff/buildings/etc. No one seems to know jack about it because of the war on chemistry. corrosion is like a budget hole. like fixing damaged plating too. And I bet its super under reported. You are talking billions here. They keep blowing money on stupid moralish initiatives then you end up with riots because people want groceries lol. then the other side is also advanced medication is expensive because chemistry is like gate-kept and you can't get cheap labor / knowledgeable people to do fairly basic stuff, then you can't handle something like helping old people because of healthcare costs. Consequences.... I guess they just think they will be 'well off' by the time they are old and it won't effect them. tell that to the rest of the planet...

 (I kind of figure that instead of seizing IP of chemical companies, or price controls... you should take a damn hard look at WHY the industry is expensive and what can make it cheaper. As usual the answer is "more people doing shit that not many people are doing right now." Then it would be healthy, people would not be crying about radical socialism or capitalism etc, it would just be there and cheap..). I think the answer is that its taught to be 'sketchy' and 'dangerous' to the public because of some sensationalism


*** IIRC its the sodium carbonate. I can't freaking stand the smell of it. Like if I open a bag its just awful. Worse then all the acids, acetylene smell, natural gas additive smell, etc. the mixture was sodium carbonate, hydroxide and TSP. I know people use sodium carbonate for laundry. Bicarbonate smells fine though. Its like you can taste soap in your lungs when you breath in sodium carbonate dust. I made it by baking baking soda. The electrocleaning makes bubbles and you can smell it. I got phosphoric acid based electropolishing chemical (100$ for a 1/2 gallon FU! ) and while the smell is corrosive its not gaggingly bad. I know other people don't get effected by it. Don't ask me why sodium carbonate effects me more then hydroxide (i.e. spraying oven cleaner, its a little choking but not vomity)

[adx]

It's worse. For every well executed science-backed decision made in public service, there is some other widely perpetuated systemic scam (and vice-versa). Like on one hand Monsanto not being allowed to advertise glyphosate as "perfectly safe" to spray on kids' play lawns with 0 withholding time, vs someone banning a cleaning substance, or condemning houses because "black mould" was found (or someone smoked amphetamines in them once, or they're not on a bus route etc etc). Whole government industries form around this sort of shit. These people usually believe (or find it convenient to believe) that their decisions are the best, despite being mindless cut and paste. Like a farmer believing it's ok to make money from growing grain for the public good, these people feel morally validated by making money from their job, except that's enforcing the most idiotic things they really don't have the first idea about. I have had more than some involvement with this system, and by and large, they really have drunk the kool-aid. Facts are utterly meaningless to them, nothing matters more to them than authority, internal consensus, the status quo and perhaps a sense of keeping the public "under control". Sometimes someone sets up this system and hides in the background while they get extremely rich from it, but sometimes it's just a headless monster that forms because everyone in their circle is getting conveniently rich (and a culture of authority, internal consensus, status quo, control). People will swallow anything, and when that happens democracy is useless.

Mob psychology is exactly it. They treat the public like farmed animals, not realising they are one themselves. It's instinctive herd behaviour, very much how humans are wired.

I didn't mean to suggest it was ducks they're saving. They crap willingly into both wastewater systems, but think about the sheer volume of fertiliser we dump in the sewage system. Locally, intensive dairying has cows urinating directly into the rivers and stormwater system with massive fertiliser runoff so the whole thing is (probably) pointless.

Like the illegality of venting a car's air conditioning refrigerant into the atmosphere, while cans of "air duster" some kid goes through a can of to clean their GPU fans regularly is exactly the same stuff (R134a with a GWP of 1430 or half a ton of CO2 in both cases).

I don't know if banning TSP was valid, but I do know it will be an arduous minefield to find out, and wouldn't be at all surprised to learn it's more about political convenience (or worse) than anything truly wise.

But oops, looks like I made the wrong stuff. I was wondering if I should first check before adding random concentrated acids and bases together! I looked up TSP on Wikipedia and It says...

"Trisodium phosphate is produced by neutralization of phosphoric acid using sodium carbonate, which produces disodium hydrogen phosphate. The disodium hydrogen phosphate is reacted with sodium hydroxide to form trisodium phosphate and water."

(I wrote that before I saw your extra bit about electrocleaning, I really shouldn't but tempted to try. I always thought the smell from sodium carbonate was because it had eaten something oily (like soaking some dirty clothes) I can tolerate it fine but does have a distinctive or maybe stinktive whiff of rotten fish and wet dog.)

[adx]

Corrosion is big business. Both for the the coatings industry and rebuilding everything that is 'accepted' to have a finite lifetime (like bridges or buildings), to keep the cycle of consumption going. I think the pressure of society to keep that gravy train running is stronger than its desire to save stuff (or people) hence abstractions like socialism or capitalism. People want that. Ergo people are stupid, but we all know that.

An example of a "well executed science-backed decision made in public service" is perhaps this handbook by DOC NZ "Conservation of iron and steelwork in historic structures and machinery"...

https://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/science-and-technical/sap247entire.pdf

That's why I mentioned rinse and seal (for rust), it's kind of the conclusion I came to, that you can do what you want to clean a metal, it just corrodes again in the same environment, to the point that products of corrosion like rust are effectively inert when compared to accelerators like chlorides (essentially same thing for filiform corrosion in aluminium and what happens at the acidic head of the 'worm', being more my interest than steel). POR-15 has a similar message (clean and paint over the rust) which has worked for me. Also why I'm wary of HCl, excellent derusting in an instant and itself volatile, but the merest whiff of it (eg bottle in the same even well-ventilated room) causes a nightmare of rusting. DOC take that up a notch, and suggest using 30000 psi waterblasters!

But sometimes it's nice just to clean rust off (or if it will cause problems like staining workpieces or releasing dust in a cleanroom situation), for that I've settled on soaking in a citric and oxalic acid solution (sometimes just a small amount of oxalic) which has been more than neutralised by baking soda (pH doesn't seem to make much difference but too low and it will eat metal at some point). If I had a supply of cheap Evapo Rust I'd probably use that.

But the upshot for steel seems to be "paint it".

[coppercone2]

Military does plate and paint and paints top grade stainless too (and I don't mean stuff for camo, like inside of things) lol

it quickly becomes useless on many moving parts, and then you need plating.

The problem is the additives are hard to understand, I started working it out for copper, but it looks like every metal is different. It seems that those ready plating solutions are heart ache for barely economic projects... most of which are, and then you can try to learn chemistry to get around that cost hike.

At some point, it feels similar to a situation where you can't buy a replacement pillow case, or reupholster something, because of worn coatings. ridiculous

[coppercone2]

you know what I just bought the pressurized refillable bottle I was thinking about it, with the price of freaking flux remover spray, which I get tempted to use, it might be a OK value. I looked at my years purchases of aeresol cans, I am sure someone might freak out if they saw that total

The good aerosol flux remover aint even close to cheap

I thought about building it but seriously for some reason, every time I tried to make something out of a can, it ended badly. I am not gonna even bother. The schrader valve DIY trap.


And it looks well built, I figure when doing boards, I can pre-heat the bottle of deionized water in the ultrasonic cleaner, that might be the ticket to making it work well. The commercial bottle looks well made , I bet if I tried to heat up DIY modified spray cans, they would rust up, they are built with rolled edges and other cheap tricks.

 Only thing I might need is a nitrogen tank adapter if it is to be very clean.



I would have ended up trying to make something out of a barbasol...





There is another option, the swiffer wet jet, I just remembered it lol. If you make a more laminar nozzle it might work too, not sure how it compares to a water pik... but incase anyone got stupid chirstmas gifts...


I will let you know how it does with water corrosion in the future. The pump is still on the table because while this thing claims to be compatible with water, it does say not to store, and does not mention water explicitly. The water can be degassed before use, since I plan to run it with a nitrogen tank, I can hit it with the nitrogen bubbler before filling.


The project I have in mind that it might help with is the tektronix 460 oscilloscope re-cap project.... https://www.ewktool.com/products/eb0394-aluminum-refillable-spray-can


Ooo nice I found a stainless one, cancled the order and got this instead, glad I reread the thread
https://www.firstinfo-tools.com/en/products/a1636


Only difference is that for some reason the firstinfo one specifically says no alcohol . I wonder if it has to do with gasket choice. I guess im the only person on earth crazy enough to want to use these things with water! Getting away from canned alcohol is not that appealing to me, since it likely stays rather anhydrous in the can (mg chemicals).... alcohol absorbs water too easily


BTW I did try a new alcohol bottle, the all clear plastic one is better then the one with the metal lid IMO
https://fiberopticsupply.com/jonard-alcohol-dispenser-bottle-220ml-fd-220/

That is very good

[jpanhalt]

There are at least 289 threads here that mention "flux remover" and probably even more on the subject.  This one is a classic.  It's 2026, and coppercone2 can still be perseverating over unimaginable complications

"every time I tried to make something out of a can, it ended badly. I am not gonna even bother"  Heating water in a closed container in an ultrasonic or using nitrogen rather than CO2/propane/freon and freon like volatiles to pressurize hopefully won't end badly too. 

"The schrader valve DIY trap"  Please explain.  Google can't tell me, "The term "DIY Schrader valve trap" is not a standard mechanical term."

[adx]

Ah perseveration - that thing where you finally find that perfect but unlikely solution, only to realise you've spent half your life searching and it's now too late. But up until that point you realise you might have to spend the other half of your life because can't stop now. I suppose it's better than some of the alternatives.

That first can comes apart in the middle! Not what I was expecting.

The no alcohol thing might be because someone is going to use air (or a spare oxygen tank they have laying around or they find out the acetylene pressure is way to low but the other one is fine). Don't play this video if you don't like blood:



I guess alcohol doesn't like to diesel, but still, minorly wary of such things now I'm older and still alive. BTW the dude in that report survived apparently (making that blood less NSFL, also BTW this is about exploding office chairs, I have just again checked there is a steel plate between the ram and, well, me, you might want to too).

These are the types of pumps I was looking at when trying to solve my medium pressure parts washer problem a year or 2 ago (for when the link dies this is a believably 130psi 2 stage diaphragm pump for electric sprayers, they now go up to 300psi):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009697694291.html

But just realised something like this might be more the solution:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008145549532.html

Espresso machine pump, cheaper, 275psi. Noisy mains powered things with not a lot of flow and a lot of pulsing, but now I think about it that might be perfect. My coffee machine sprays out quite a bit of water when it leaks (replaced group head seal, felt it was too tight so shimmed the screws, now I have valuable hindsight), more than enough to wash things but nothing like getting the Karcher from outside.

[coppercone2]

oh man 275psi

That is another good question, how much is too much for shooting under PCB chips


It did make me wonder if you can use it for QC to find a brittle solder joint lol. proofing test for BGA ?

I got my stainless bottle but it smells like machine oil inside, gotta wash it out good. We are not talking food grade goods here, I think its meant as a sulfur oil sprayer

I have a feeling the stainless bottle got drawn, formed or whatever, and thats how I got it. I will have to wash and passivate it (I suspect if it stinks like sulfur oil, they did not passviate it with a bath)


I suspect the better documented aluminum bottle is higher quality (the one that opens in the middle). I will do base/citric/base treatment on the bottle before using it, kinda wish I bought the aluminum one


I have my doubts that this will give a 'distilled water' finish. Maybe good enough for PCB. Suspicious for high impedance. Doubtful for optics. There is probobly oil in the nozzle / valve thing. I think you would need to make a special one, with something like a peristaltic valve (tubing that gets clamped, and thats it)


However, some trace of machine oil under a chip is preferred to flux residue

After I clean/passivate it, I will run some hot dawn through it and flush with the water


For making one that works with pomp, I think the best design would be to not use a tank, and it would instead be placed in a cleaned beaker and syphon the water out

[coppercone2]

well I did a AAA passivation on it, and it turns out it might be made from 303 stainless.

I used ultrasonic alconox, oven cleaner and citric acid. It looks like this part needs proper treatment in a hot bath, not just half assing it with oven cleaner, because I got a slight rotten egg smell after the citric acid bath.

This is the process I usually use for stainless steel, and I never really got a rotten egg smell before. I do 10 minutes in alconox, shake rinse, refill 5 times (full bottle), (smells normal at this point) then oven cleaner, then citric acid, and oven cleaner again. I never saw too much of an effect doing it properly with a hot caustic bath, but I guess for this stuff you would need to if you really wanna 'treat' the steel properly.

The idea is for spinning and forming if you use 303 stainless (sulfur bearing) it works better for the process, but you have sulfur to deal with.

So if you wanna experiment with that, keep in mind you will need a hot long base bath to 'clean' that bottle out properly

I will see where the thing I did gets me, I might try to do it again more properly if there is a problem or more smells

smells OK after the last oven cleaner treatment

[coppercone2]

It seems to work really nice. I have not figured out how to hook in the N2 yet, but the amount of force that the stream has at 100 PSI feels like it should clean under a thin slot in a SMT chip but not damage properly soldered parts. Maybe its a bit high, I will have to see how it performs on a PCB, I don't have a good feel of what is too much for something like 0402 part.

A bit of a hassle to fill the thing before use, but so is soldering those tiny parts. I really hate how hard it is to have a clean surface under something like a QFN package... feels like something to take seriously.

Also got a nice big dispenser bottle for my dh2o


the 2.5 gallon bottles are very good for 6.5 liter ultrasonic, I can empty it through the valve into the container, and it all fits even though it foams up, so it turns out the dead space is conveniuant. I was going to get the two gallon bottles that fit better, but they look like office crap I don't like (water cooler style blue bottles). So I can empty my ultrasonic from alconox or pcb cleaner and put distilled water in there now. It fits in the sink so I can rinse it out with the faucet. Now I just need to buy a manual rinse bottle for a final rinse on the cleaner, and my station should be complete (now it has water distiller, big water tank with spigot and storage bottles for solutions), so every board can get cleaned right. The foaming issue is a problem for ultrasonic bath draining, you need excess space to have efficiency, unless you wait for the foam to go down before you pour more in


I see they sell glass ones that use pressure hookup, if you really need purity, like glassware ones, but I don't need that level of clean, and the glass is too much trouble.

But I am thinking about this one
https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/2403-0125PK

I wonder if you can leave distilled water in it, or if it will go stinky. I was thinking to rinse/fill it strait from the distiller, maybe it would store OK then so I have a manual rinser on hand. For some reason I never had good luck leaving water in those squirt bottles, maybe I just never cleaned it right. Seems OK in poland spring bottles of all things. Maybe I just never got the neck cleaned properly.

I got a teflon one with like a ketchup style squeeze tip, so its easy to clean (no straw) for general rinsing, hopefully I can keep water in that for a long time to have it ready, I should be OK with boiling that. I may buy some nalgene ones with a straw too, I am guessing there might be a merit to a final rinse with low pressure.