EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Repair => Topic started by: coppercone2 on February 09, 2022, 02:58:27 am
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I saw this on youtube
https://youtube.com/shorts/tn-3ZVfbRhE?feature=share
That is certainly a interesting idea, to vapor coat the PCB to find shorts.
Anyone use this technique? Looks like a poor mans thermal camera.
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Poor man's Tempilaq, rather. :)
Seems reasonable enough. Only works if the affected spot gets hot enough to melt and coalesce the vapor, of course. Might not work for PCB shorts (low resistance, too much thermal mass?).
Any kind of temp-sensitive phenomenon will work, like, you could deposit a fog of... some liquid, and watch where it evaporates more quickly. Like foggy windows, but, water might not be suitable for obvious reasons, alcohol has too low surface tension (forming a film rather than droplets), maybe a slightly heavier alcohol or light oil would do, not sure. Oh, or alcohol with something dissolved in it, possibly rosin again, but another organic compound (or even inorganic salt) that crystallizes well, leaving a white spot as the film evaporates, could show in a similar way. Or a low melting wax, to a similar end as the rosin. Of course you then need to clean off that residue before continuing (unless it happens to be soldering-compatible, like rosin).
Tim
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Hmm, is that safe for electrical circuits though? The rosin things seem you can use for almost anything since everything but very high voltages and precision RF stuff can get away with leaving rosin on the PCB (QC aside).
You know you won't be getting anything alien on the PCB if you just use rosin... I actually like working on PCB outside in the cold because you can see broken stuff out gas very visibly... plus it does not smell up the house.
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Make desoldering easier also as the joints have flux applied already. Kill 2 birds with one stone.