Solder Balls.........Blah

I know this topic has probably been talked about before...But I ran into a small situation where Solder Balls were appearing in large quantities on the PCB....the Problem has been isolated and taken care of, my question is, what are some good methods for removing the balls from the PCB asside from picking each one off with a scribe. -Ben

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| I know this topic has probably been talked about before...But I ran into a small situation where Solder Balls were appearing in large quantities on the PCB....the Problem has been isolated and taken care of, my question is, what are some good methods for removing the balls from the PCB asside from picking each one off with a scribe. | -Ben Dear Ben, As part of an stencil cleaner evaluation, one of our customers evaluated several "spray type" stencil cleaners against our Ultrasonic Stencil Cleaner. One major problem he discovered with each stencil cleaner using high pressure spray technology was that double-sided misprinted PCBs would become contaminated with solder balls on the populated side and in the vias. In an effort to salvage the contaminated boards, he successfully removed the solder balls by cleaning the boards in a Smart Sonic Ultrasonic Stencil Cleaner. If your boards are only contaminated with solder balls (no flux), you should be able to acheive similar results by using a standard ultrasonic cleaner (40 kHz). Be sure to orient the boards so that the solder balls can fall freely away from the components by gravity. If you have post solder flux contamination, you may also need a special chemistry to use with the ultrasonics. If you have presolder solder paste as the solder ball contamination, you will need Smart Sonic's 440-R SMT Detergent with the ultrasonics. If you have any questions, please call me toll free: 1(800)806-440R Good luck!

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