[Amps] Degreasing Ceramic

[Tomm Aldridge]

Trichlor (short for trichloroethylene) is also nasty s*it.  It was used 
wholesale as a parts degreaser by the military and industry and then 
banned sometime in the 70's as a general use solvent.  I had a menial 
job as an undergrad somewhere in NM that included hand degreasing of 
parts in the stuff which resulted in liver damage after only 1 semester 
at the job (probably 3 or 4 1 hr immersions up to my elbows) where the 
stuff was used.  The effects were not discovered for 5 years at which 
time I failed the hepatitus screen for teh Red Cross blood donations 
program.  Point being that this class of solvent is not worth messing with.

Perc was used at Sprague Electric to degrease lead frames and some 
ferrites prior to potting and coating.  We had a vapor tank like Hal 
described but our outcomes included a dead employee.  She bent over the 
tank to retreve a missing part and knocked the lid support off.  When 
noticed a 1/2 hr later, it was far too late.  Again, nothing to mess 
around with!

I stick with ionic cleaners and DI rinces now.

Tomm, KD7QAE

Harold B. Mandel wrote:
> In the paragraph below do you actually mean trichloroethylene
> or do you refer to 1,1 Trichloroethane (Methyl Chloroform)?
> 
> The former, trichloroethylene, smells completely different than
> the chloroform. The latter was commonly known as "IBM Cleaning
> Fluid," and was removed from all service.
> 
> The last cleaning fluid used in copious amounts at IBM was
> Perchlorethylene (dry-cleaning fluid), used to melt off the
> flux on chips left by the wave-soldering machine. The chips were
> immersed in boiling Perc for a while and then transferred to
> a vapor tank where perc condensed on the chips and dripped
> off.
> 
> My lab had a Freon boiler. We would soak our ceramics in
> a tank of boiling Freon, or rather just above the fluid level 
> and the mist would degrease the surfaces. The nastiest job 
> was when someone dropped a thousand or so chips into the
> boiling Freon and had to scoop them out by bending over the
> top of the tank.
> 
> Trichloroethylene is the nastiest smelling of all the stuff above.
> Trichloroethane smells pretty good, but it's chewing up your
> insides faster than the ethylene. Perc snuffs out your brain cells
> as does the Freon. Mix handling these with responsibilities
> handling radioactive isotopes and you can see why we had
> plant-wide evacuations about once a month. 
> 
> There's a huge class-action lawsuit of ex-IBM'ers who got sick
> using Cleaning Fluid. I think I read that some 5 out of the 20
> who initiated action have died along the way.
> 
> If you're going to degrease ceramics using solvents at least do
> it outside where the fumes can't be sucked into the furnace register
> and be turned into Phosgene gas....
> 
> Respectfully,
> 
> Hal Mandel
> W4HBM
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>When in doubt, I always use 99% alcohol or even 
>>MEK or (1,1,1 Trichlorethylene) but the last two are really bad SH_T 
>>and you  don't want it lying around! 
> 
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