Corrosion in breadboards?

[mstacho]

Howdy,

I find this happens to me a lot: I buy a breadboard (uh...the ones you solder onto, not the solderless ones), and once I solder my circuit, they only last for a few months before they get pretty corroded.  Am I supposed to put a fixative or something on it, or does that just always happen?  I guess it's not really a corrosion so much as it is a discoloration of the copper contacts, but it's still weird.  Any thoughts?

MIKE

[joe61]

Copper just does that. You can take one of those plastic abrasive dish sponges to them periodically, but I don't think it does any harm, although I may get corrected on that.

Joe

[Gertlex]

I want to say the flux from soldering can cause corrosion, but I've never personally experienced this.  There's definitely flux-cleaning products out there.

[Webbot]

Copper + air => grunge

Think what you are seeing is copper dioxide (?) on the exposed areas. For an unused board then cleaning it with fine wire wool and methylated spirits helps to get it back into 'new' condition. For 'already made' boards then I guess you could always spray with something like a varnish to keep the air out - so long as it is an insulator

[mstacho]

Hm, works for me.  So I guess it's not a serious problem, other than looks?  How do the PCB makers prevent it from happening?

[Soeren]

Hi,

Manufacturers (and hobbyists who like to keep their copper solderable ) use a lacquer that's not only solderable, but even works as a flux when heated by the iron. After a repair (or whatever), reapply on exposed copper.

I personally prefer SK10 for light duty work and have used it since the seventies. I have tried a few other types (mostly German products), but nothing really beats SK10

If you're absolutely sure, that you won't ever need to solder the board, a few layers of Plasticote or similar is better suited to resist a moist and dirty atmosphere (like under the hood of a car), but then repair gets really troublesome, as it forms a tough "hide" that's hard to remove (and don't try to solder through it, unless you have a superb fume extractor).