Of all the questions I am asked related to cleaning the most frequent is
“Do I need to clean my circuit board before conformal coating?”.
If only it was simple to answer!
Generally, cleaning of a circuit board before conformal coating application is desirable. For Parylene this requirement may be even more important due to the bonding issues of the material.
However, it may not be essential.
Ultimately, the cleanliness of the circuit can be crucial for both the short-term production process and the long-term reliability of the circuit.
But, its difficult to know for sure if you need to clean until you complete some trials.
For the process it is difficult to know until you attempt to apply the conformal coating in production.
Then you will know immediately if you need cleaning since if you have problems you will see conformal coating defects like de-wetting, de-lamination and poor adhesion.
For the long-term reliability unless you want to wait until your product fails then some sort of reliability testing should be tried.
After all the purpose of the application of the conformal coating is to improve reliability.
It has less value unless the board is clean enough in the first place.
Other key questions in cleaning
There are many questions relating to conformal coating and cleanliness that are regularly asked.
These include:
- What is being cleaned when circuit boards are washed?
- How should I clean my electronic circuit board?
- How do I validate my cleaning process?
If further information on these topics and the key question you can go to our free eBook by clicking Nexus conformal coating and cleaning.
If you are new to Nexus and our work on conformal coatings then a good place to go is our Start Here page.
Dr Lee Hitchens is the author of the Nexus conformal coating website and eBook.
Send me an email at lhitchens@nexus3c.com and let me know what you think?
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