Solder Mask Removal Comments

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Thanks for this tip, worked excellent!
Before this I tried carefully grinding the solder mask away, got most of it although gold was lost. Now I don't have to worry about that anymore!

- Nic
 
Thanks again Steve! Another very helpful and well produced video..

My question is about the 'after' process.

Would you suggest cutting these pads up, then process in AP as per fingers?

I did a search on these touch pads, but didn't really get what I was after.

Thanks again!

Adam
 
Don't want to go off topic here, but have a question that may be related to the process.

Can the soldermask process also remove painted surfaces from karat jewelry items?
 
Paint is easily removed with any one of several common solvents including, but not limited to; stoddards solvent, acetone, or paint thinner.

I'm not sure if the lye solution will do the trick.

Steve
 
I tried this method and the first one I did went pretty well. :lol: But I think I failed the second one. Think I had to much heat and the gold plating disappeared? :shock:
 

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Emporio said:
I tried this method and the first one I did went pretty well. :lol: But I think I failed the second one. Think I had to much heat and the gold plating disappeared? :shock:
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more than likely, there wasnt any gold plating on the second one. the two boards may have been produced by separate companies.the gold plate may have been a voluntary thing that may have changed when gold prices went up. hard to say, but i see gold plating on the second board at the solder joints.
 
Geo said:
Emporio said:
I tried this method and the first one I did went pretty well. :lol: But I think I failed the second one. Think I had to much heat and the gold plating disappeared? :shock:
Click to expand...

more than likely, there wasnt any gold plating on the second one. the two boards may have been produced by separate companies.the gold plate may have been a voluntary thing that may have changed when gold prices went up. hard to say, but i see gold plating on the second board at the solder joints.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly
 
Emporio said:
I tried this method and the first one I did went pretty well. :lol: But I think I failed the second one. Think I had to much heat and the gold plating disappeared? :shock:
Click to expand...

This is korean eye candy , lol. They like to make even electronics look more valuable than they are..
 
In the video Steve suspects that the boards are covered in polysulfone. A quick search on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysulfone) shows that while polysulfone is not susceptible to attack by mineral acids (things like HCl, nitric acid, sulfuric acid), it is not resistant to low-polar solvents. It lists ketones and chlorinated hydrocarbons as examples.

So, I wonder if the mask could be removed using something like acetone (one of the simplest ketones)? In the video Steve mentions that other users have had success with methylene chloride (a chlorinated hydrocarbon), so it stands to reason that acetone might work.

I looked for other posts talking about acetone removing the solder mask but didn't come up with much. If someone can point me to some, great. If not, I'm still going to test some boards I have to see what happens. If it works it seems a bit safer than hot NaOH :)
 
siannopollo said:
In the video Steve suspects that the boards are covered in polysulfone. A quick search on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysulfone) shows that while polysulfone is not susceptible to attack by mineral acids (things like HCl, nitric acid, sulfuric acid), it is not resistant to low-polar solvents. It lists ketones and chlorinated hydrocarbons as examples.

So, I wonder if the mask could be removed using something like acetone (one of the simplest ketones)? In the video Steve mentions that other users have had success with methylene chloride (a chlorinated hydrocarbon), so it stands to reason that acetone might work.

I looked for other posts talking about acetone removing the solder mask but didn't come up with much. If someone can point me to some, great. If not, I'm still going to test some boards I have to see what happens. If it works it seems a bit safer than hot NaOH :)
Click to expand...


I tried acetone a long time ago and it never touched it, even tried conformal coating stripper and no change.
 
I tried acetone today (4 hour soak) as well as ethyl acetate (labeled as MEK substitute) with no luck. Oh well, had to try.

But with that failure I decided to test whether the removal of the solder mask in Steve's original video was completely a result of the NaOH solution, or if heat was also playing a factor. I took a board I had leftover from removing the fingers and heated it in tap water. I let it sit in a good boil for 1-2 minutes. After about a minute the solder mask covering large sections of metal started to bubble. When I removed it from the water I just rubbed those sections and the mask came right off. The parts of the mask covering small connections stayed intact, but it does appear that heat alone can get you somewhere in removing the solder mask.

I also tried it on another board with a different looking mask and got nothing, so it also looks like this technique depends on the type of solder mask.
 
I am fairly new here and I have only made a few posts. I want badly to see steves videos and for some reason I can't seem to get them to play, yes I have all my software up to date and so forth, I am a computer repair tech. amongst other things...I was wondering if anyone has alternate link to those videos and most importantly right now the video pertaining and describing the method of removing the solder mask?? If not I am going to continue trying to get the videos on Steve's site to work in the mean time but I would really appreciate any ones help in seeing this video asap. Thank you everyone on here cause there some much good information on here and I am truly blessed to have the ability to read and learn from it.
 
Nostradomus said:
I am fairly new here and I have only made a few posts. I want badly to see steves videos and for some reason I can't seem to get them to play, yes I have all my software up to date and so forth, I am a computer repair tech. amongst other things...I was wondering if anyone has alternate link to those videos and most importantly right now the video pertaining and describing the method of removing the solder mask?? If not I am going to continue trying to get the videos on Steve's site to work in the mean time but I would really appreciate any ones help in seeing this video asap. Thank you everyone on here cause there some much good information on here and I am truly blessed to have the ability to read and learn from it.
Click to expand...


did you try clicking on the play button ??

i always see "buffering" no matter how long i wait,
 
Many of my videos are on YouTube and can be viewed on any computer that has access to YouTube.

Some of my older videos are hosted on my web server and have issues playing without the proper version of Media Player. On my FAQ page I go over several fixes for the videos that are difficult to play.

If I ever get any free time I plan on moving all of my videos to YouTube.

Steve
 

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