News Release from: Brady Corporation
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 8 February 2002
Brady turn to Zestron to clean up on PCB labels
Labelling specialist Brady has formed a strategic alliance with Zestron, a German producer of cleaning chemicals for electronics applications.
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Labelling specialist Brady has formed a strategic alliance with Zestron, a German producer of cleaning chemicals for electronics applications. Brady's electronics customers were, until recently, confronted with a very serious problem in the production process of PCBs. More and more often, OEMs or contract manufacturers are opting to effectively remove solder and flux residuals with specific chemicals in order to eliminate the possibility of defective prints.
Depending on the application, the sort of PCB, and the personal choice of the customer, divergent cleaning procedures are employed in the production process.
In the cleaning process, chemicals specific to the application are being used that are indeed very effective in eliminating the "blemishes" but that also very frequently can cause damage to the labels on the plates.
Not only has this had the effect of the chemicals eliminating the printing on the label, even the complete topcoat has sometimes been dissolved.
As labels are essential to the identification and traceability of PCBs, Brady immediately started looking for a solution to the problem.
This was found by partnering with the German firm Zestron, leading producer of cleaning chemicals for the electronics industry.
Through the partnership between the two enterprises, an excellent communication channel was created which can only benefit the quality of the identification processes and thus also of the finished PCBs.
Each and every procedure in the electronics industry possesses its own particular features, depending on a number of factors such as temperature, solder mixes, flux etc.
As such, there is no standard combination in terms of cleaning and identification processing.
To investigate the development of effective solutions, Brady conducted extensive tests on site with various customers.
In co-operation with Zestron, the two most popular water and solvent-based cleaning agents used in the business were on each occasion combined with Brady labels.
During these tests, PCBs with labels first passed through the reflow oven process or the wave-soldering process, after which they were cleaned.
The labels were attached both to the top and the bottom sides of the PCB, resulting in direct contact of the labels with the solder bath.
The overall result is that Brady and Zestron are in a position to make specific recommendations based on a proven combination of processes, labels, and cleaning agents.
In other words, thanks to the Brady-Zestron partnership, customers can rely on a clean and traceable PCB.
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