yes you are correct if you use the refrigerant unprofessionally. its purpose isnt to freeze the entire board or the solder joints. please dont be so hasty to tell someone its a bad idea. periodically spraying the IC while holding heat to the solder joints is the correct usage as is the correct way of reworking thermal sensitive parts. as always over spraying the refrigerant will supercool the joint which is bad. you can just as easily over heat your board with your iron or heat gun. ABCellers this is called negligence , which is exactly what your last comment was about. please refrain from telling someone the wrong way to do something because its a "bad idea" instead you may wish to make your statement more like " refrigerants are very useful to cool your thermal sensitive parts but please use caution as over spraying your work area could cause......" please use a little more tact. and explain the right way to use the tools. dont knock someone's answer with a statement that tells others the side effects of negligence with out first instructing them on how to use the proper tools correctly.

chaosfx24, Aug 24 2011

just because I'm interested in this debate.. I would have thought that spraying aerosol while heating a product would be potentially a big burn waiting to happen..I realise there is no naked flame in most of these situations however people do use gas fired soldering irons...

pollytintop, Aug 25 2011

Hmhh, very interesting discussion ;-) anyhow I think the spray is HFC-134a based and nonflammable. I do know that it is being used for troubleshooting thermally intermittent components and cold solder joints.

oldturkey03, Aug 25 2011

just because I'm still nosy..how long does this refrigerant last? are we talking minutes, days, weeks? I only found one product that matched the name but it didn't say much about that sort of thing..or why you'd use it.

pollytintop, Aug 25 2011

I' d go with minutes, especially if you use it while soldering or testing logic boards and continue to supply heat. The heat loss during the application should only be while the coolant is applied. Once you stop using the spry, the effectiveness will be lost.

oldturkey03, Aug 25 2011

ok AB you can do it you way and ill keep doing things my way. I'm sure your way has worked for you and you haven't had problems. I've done this with 100% success for years now as i'm sure you have. Its my opinion that my way is safer on the IC. Yes they can take a lot of heat, and yes over time this breaks down the IC. I will call it a draw on the use of refrigerants, if used properly they can increase the life of the IC which is why i use them. Just like the Static strap I'm sure we all are aware of. I use it to change anything on the board even the RAM, others don't. Out of respect i digress.

chaosfx24, Aug 25 2011

Yeah, I have to agree with ABCellars. The refrigerant seems like a really bad idea. To get a good solder joint the last thing you want to do is thermally shock it, which is exactly what that would do. Hot, shock to cold, hot, shock to cold... that's just asking for a bad solder joints everywhere, especially during the reflow process. There's a reason that heating profiles are used in high end reflow machines. It allows them to precisely control the board temperature and bring it into and out of the sweet spot safely and quickly.

Bob Somers, Aug 25 2011

chaosfx24 I too will cease and desist from the refrigerant with reflowing topic. However, I would like to extend to you an invite to the dark side. It is a nice place to be. We have cookies :).

ABCellars, Aug 26 2011