Aqueous Technologies Corporation

ECM And IOT How To Predict, Quantify, And Mitigate ECM Failure Potential

Jul 27, 2021 | Mike Konrad

Fast forward to current time. Today, our society embraces cleanliness. We expect, demand, and evaluate cleanliness in almost every aspect of our lives. We wash our cars and pets. We maintain high cleanliness standards in our hotels and public spaces. We require cleanliness in our restaurants and hospitals. We sanitize our hands throughout the day to prevent illness. We live in a clean-centric culture. While we drive clean cars, stay in clean hotels and eat clean food, there is one part of our life where we actually abandoned cleanliness. Many of the circuit assemblies that affect almost every aspect of our daily lives are no longer required to be clean. Even though our life experience confirms the link between cleanliness and reliability, happiness, health, and safety, circuit assemblies no longer maintain that "cleanliness is next to Godliness" status. This was not always the case. There was a time when virtually all circuit assemblies were cleaned. The removal of flux and other process-related contamination was commonplace. Cleaning was as normal as soldering. As we bring history into current time, one may relate the fall of Rome and its adoption of personal hygiene and the subsequent decline in human health to the large-scale abandonment of cleanliness expectations of circuit assemblies and the subsequent reliability issues it has created. How did this happen? Has history repeated itself?...

The Reasons for Cleaning

Jun 28, 2021 | Michael Konrad

This book is a compilation of many articles I have published on the subjects of cleaning, reliability, and cleanliness testing. Throughout these articles, I promote a common mantra: Clean is better than dirty. Less contamination is better than more contamination. Some assemblies can tolerate more contamination; others, less....

The Environmental Cost of Green

Sep 30, 2009 | Aqueous Technologies Corporation

Being involved in the electronics assembly industry for more than 23 years, specifically in the field of defluxing and cleanliness testing, I have seen my share of environmental regulations. Long before the debate over lead-free alloys, there was the Montreal Protocol....

De-fluxing Eases

Aug 19, 2009 | Mike Konrad, President, Aqueous Technologies

There are several advantages to using a contract assembler. One of which is maintaining the ability to dictate desired results. Therefore, how those results are achieved becomes someone else's concern. When you combine this with the fact that many contract assemblers are not accustomed to saying "no," you become a witness to the birth of innovation....

Defluxing Déjà vu

Jul 29, 2009 | Michael Konrad, President, Aqueous Technologies Corporation

While the origin of the phrase "may you live in interesting times" is widely disputed, the fact that we indeed live in an interesting time is certainly not. While record bank failures and declines in stock values, only rivaled by the Depression era, wreak havoc on consumer confidence, the economic trickle-down effect translates to reductions in production output and ultimately the consolidation of many industries, including electronic assembly....

How Clean Is Clean?

Mar 19, 2009 | Michael Konrad, President; Aqueous Technologies Corporation

Over the past several years, post-reflow defluxing of circuit assemblies has gained in popularity. Microminiaturization of components and boards, combined with higher expected reliability and increased product liability, have contributed to the prominence of defluxing. Lead-free solder paste - with its higher reflow temperatures and negative effects on flux - increase the likelihood of post-reflow defluxing to increase a product's reliability and aesthetic appearance....