MicroCare Unveils Innovative PCB Cleaner ‘UltraClean’ at NEPCON Shanghai

As one of the largest electronics manufacturing exhibitions in Asia, NEPCON was the perfect platform in which to present UltraClean, according to Mike Jones, MicroCare Vice President. He noted, “UltraClean really captured the attention of visitors to our stand at NEPCON. Everybody in Asia uses alcohol to clean their boards during rework, and most of them have problems with its performance. For production engineers to come to NEPCON and discover a new way to clean – a better, faster and less expensive way to clean – that makes for a very exciting exhibition for the visitors and for MicroCare.”

VOC-Free Flux Remover - UltraClean has been formulated to deliver high-performance cleaning on lead-free circuits. Then the requirements were tightened even further: UltraClean has been engineered to meet or exceed all of the different health, safety and environmental restrictions imposed upon cleaning chemistries around the world.

The product uses a totally new solvent formulation, so it is VOC-free, halogen-free, ozone-safe and safe for people. It also is the first product to use a new, unique, non-flammable propellant – this innovation reduces any global warming impact by 99% or more. The end result is a powerful but safe cleaner that is absolutely benign in the environment.

This environmental pedigree is important to large, multinational OEM and SCM customers because it means they can specify one specific part number for their PCB cleaning, and use it anywhere in the world – the USA, Germany, Qatar, Japan and China, to name a few countries with differing requirements.

“UltraClean is the go-anywhere, clean-anything product for the 21st century,” Mr. Jones said. “Companies can specify UltraClean for their PCBs and really stand out from their competitors because they are being environmentally responsible. It can create a competitive advantage for them by demonstrating in a very significant manner that they adhere to the highest environmental standards and expectations. The fact is it saves them money… well, they don’t have to share that if they don’t want to.”

Another distinction unique to UltraClean is the fact the product does not use water or alcohol in the formulation. “At NEPCON, we saw several companies touting their ‘green’ cleaners, which were basically water mixed with some detergents,” noted Mr. Jones. “This is like putting lipstick on a pig: it simply doesn’t work. Today’s PCBs are too small, too dense, too hot and too complex to be cleaned with water on the benchtop or in a cleaning machine. The chemists and engineers at MicroCare took a totally different tactic, and spent years finding the right combination of specific gravity, viscosity, surface tension, specific heat and so on, to get a product that will out-clean and out-perform any of those old-style, water-based or alcohol-based products.”

VOC-Free Flux Remover - UltraClean is the superior choice to clean rosin fluxes, synthetic fluxes, ‘no-clean’ fluxes and hard-to-clean lead-free materials used in the assembly and manufacture of printed circuit boards. It also can remove silicone-based glues, coatings and insulators. Because the cleaner dries relatively slowly, it is ideal for rework and repair of PCBs. Packaged in a 300 gram aerosol, the product is designed to be used with the TriggerGrip cleaning system, which further reduces solvent consumption and saves money. It also is available in 3.9 litre, 19 litre, and 200 litre packages. The product is available world-wide from authorized MicroCare distributors.