[Elecraft] defluxing PCB's

[Bob Lewis (AA4PB)]

I was always taught (including in the military's Pace soldering
course) that boards should be de-fluxed. I did in fact carefully
deflux all the boards in my K2. Elecraft, as I recall, advises against
it because of the risk of damaging components if you are not extremly
careful. I doubt that de-fluxing is really necessary on most amateur
projects. I believe it was done in the military because of the
possibility of operation in very high humidity environments and
possible high impedance circuits. PC boards also had a conformal
coating which we replaced or repaired after a component change. You
wouldn't want to leave flux under the coating.