Mike Konrad joins Chris Denney (Worthington Assembly) and Melissa Hough (CircuitHub) on the Pick-Place Podcast . This is the first of a two-part interview.

In this episode we are joined by Mike Konrad to chat about board cleaning best practices. Mike founded  Aqueous Technologies in 1992 in response to the Montreal Protocol and the resulting international treaty banning most popular cleaning/defluxing solvents. Their board cleaning equipment assists manufacturers with increasing product reliability while saving both water and energy, reducing the industry's environmental impact.

In addition to being the President of Aqueous Technologies, he is also a fellow podcaster and runs the Reliability Matters Podcast, which discusses reliability of circuit assemblies, reliability "best practices" and success stories.

In the first part of this conversation we delve into the history of board cleaning, the electronics the industry's transition to primarily using no-clean flux, and why more and more companies are reintroducing board cleaning back into their assembly process.

If you want to listen to us get into the nitty-gritty details of how to implement a proper circuit board cleaning process, make sure to listen to the second half of this episode.

Chris Denney may be reached at [email protected]

Melissa Hough may be reached at [email protected]