Knowledgebase

Over the years we have compiled knowledge, data and expertise with great assistance from our broad base of customers, partners and suppliers.  We have assembled some of our experiences in order to provide you with tools that may assist you in areas of your process. 

Please refer to the tools and documents and let us know if you have any questions, or if there are any topics that you would like more information on let us know!  The information is categorized by topic to make it easier to search.

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 Search our document folder for all types of information, from MSDS to TDS or User Manuals. 
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If you have a sales question, please feel free to contact us at:

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Document Directory 
Aqueous Technologies 
Trident Defluxing System Training/Installation Guide      
Batch Defluxing Cycle Costs      
Cost Comparison - Rinse Water Recycling vs. Evaporation (Data)      
Cost Comparison - Rinse Water Recycling vs. Evaporation (Presentation)        
Operational Costs - Batch vs. Inline
Ersa 
Tip Savings         
i-Con Presentation   
Circuits Assembly - i-Con Article - July 2006   
Lead-Free Hand Soldering Tech Paper - Mark Cannon  
Kyzen Corporation 
Booster 20 Concentration Calculator  
Non-Volatile Residue (NVR) Testing - by Tim Wright   
DI Water Bulletin   

PCB Defluxing

How much Booster20 should I add?

Booster20 is an inhibitor used in combination with the Kyzen A4625B cleaning chemistry. Booster20 is added sump side (meaning when the chemistry is poured into the cleaning system, as compared to being packaged in the chemistry itself prior to addition) to the wash solution.  Unfortunately, due to the separating characteristic of the Booster20, it cannot be packaged into the chemistry,

This additive is required when cleaning Leaded (Pb) alloys, if unused, you will observe darkened solder joints. 

Clicking on the HTML icon will provide you data based upon a 15% concentration, whereas clicking on the Excel link will provide you with an Excel Spreadsheet.

   

What's more efficient, Rinse Water Recycling or Evaporation?

 Making your process "Green" will  incur an added cost, when comparing to going straight to drain.  Assessing what those costs will be is key in your decision of Rinse Water Recycling vs Evaporation.  Also, please consider that evaporation is still exhausting into your environment, but through a vent stack as compared to a drain.  This is a key point in regards to the impact on your environment, plus it is something that can surely be regulated in the future, which will cause you to reassess your process again.

In our experience, Rinse Water Recycling is the best solution.  As you will find the operational costs (media tank exchange) are actually minimal, when you compare to the operational costs (electricity) involved with the evaporation process.  Not to mention an evaporation process isn't truly green considering it is still exhausting to the vent and it is using large amounts of energy to evaporate the drain water.

- Clicking on the PowerPoint icon will allow you to open or save a PowerPoint presentation of data that we collected comparing the operational costs of both processes.
 
- Clicking on the PDF icon will open a PDF version of the same presentation.

- Clicking on the HTML icon will open up an HTML representation of the data viewable in your browser


             


What are typical cycle costs of a batch defluxing process?

A batch defluxing process is much more efficient than running an inline defluxing process, especially in an Aqueous Technologies Trident Defluxing System. 

First, a batch defluxer is heating up a much smaller quantity of wash solution (approx. 3.5 gallons) for use in the wash process; whereas, in an inline cleaning system you are trying to heat 60 gallons of wash solution.  The difference in energy usage is quite significant in comparison.

Secondly, the separation of wash process to rinse process is a difficult task.  The only effective methods are to increase the footprint of the machine by elongating the line and creation of an chemical isolation zone or to accurately place and tune your spray jets to ensure less carry over from one zone to the other. 

The problem is if rinse water makes it into your wash solution tank, your wash solution concentration will decrease and cleanliness issues could arise. On the opposite, if too much wash solution chemistry is making it to the rinse zone, you are washing valuable chemistry down the drain.

A batch defluxing system, like the Trident, completely separates the wash process from the rinse process by using separate plumbing for both process.  When the wash process is complete, the Trident returns the wash solution to a holding tank and actuates a series of solenoids to activate the rinse process, at which time it brings in fresh DI water to rinse the PCBs/PCAs.  Very minimal amounts of chemistry are wasted, usually the form of suds on the chambers or PCBs that doesn't return to the wash solution tank, this is considered your dragout.

We have compiled some data that helps you to assess what the cost of a cleaning process, you can view this information by clicking on the HTML icon below.  This is an estimated cost per batch, so remember the more PCBs that can be loaded, means a more efficient process.




 

Hand Soldering

What are the savings I should see with the Ersa i-Con hand soldering system?

The Ersa i-Con 1 Hand Soldering system is a state of the art soldering iron system that gives you the ultimate controls of your hand soldering process.  The engineering of the system takes several factors in account, including:  conveniencem, quality and efficiency.

The i-Con 1 uses accuracte thermocouple placement and 150w heating element to provide you with an accurate hand soldering tool that has sufficient power to quickly recover andythermal energy that is transferred to the solder joint in the hand soldering process.

This allows you to solder at lower temperatures, rather than compensating with increased temperatures.  This is safer for both your tips and your components.  Lower temperatures can greatly prolong your tip life, which can save you significant amounts over the life of the soldering stations. 

Furthermore, the Ersa i-Con 1 uses i-Tips which have about 2-3 times the plating of most of our competition.  The Ersa i-Tips use approximately 300-600µ of Iron (Fe) plating, in comparison to approximately 100-200µ of Iron (Fe) plating in our competitors'.  This simply means that our tips will last approximately 2-3 times as long, under the same conditions (time, temp, etc.); which with the added efficiency of the Ersa i-Con 1 only works further in Ersa's favor.

Often, the operational costs of a soldering station are overlooked because a company is already invested in a station.  But we ask you to take a look at the actual costs of your current soldering iron stations, not what they originally cost you, but what are they costing you now to keep them in operation?

By clicking on the HTML link you will get a representation on the potential savings based upon 15 stations.

By clicking on the EXCEL link you will be able to save and manipulate the data to your application.