Flux residue deemed harmful

[Guest]

FWIW

While living in Houston, I had a couple of cheap VCRs die after about 1 year. In disassembling one to scavenge parts I observed a tremendous amount of flux residue. This got me to wondering whether the hygroscopic nature of rosin fluxes might be a factor.

In the last few weeks I have "repaired" an IR remote, a WWVB sync clock and an AM/FM/CD/cassette by the simple act of removing all visible traces of rosin flux w/ a spray of isopropyl alcohol, an old tooth brush and a paper towel to blot up the liquid.

All of the devices were nonfunctional. The CD player reported "No Disc". Initially intermittently for CD-Rs but eventually consistently for replicated discs also. The IR remote was less than 6 months old and had lots of flux residue. The other gear was older and had less. There was only one small blob on a few leads of a fine pitch IC on the CD controller board in the case of the CD unit.

While 3 for 3 is not a strong statistic, I'm beginning to suspect that this may be the primary cause of consumer electronics failures followed by electrolytics.

The widespread use of low voltage digital logic is likely a factor. All 3 items had microcontrollers embedded.

I'd be interested to hear if other people have similar experience.