Defective PCB cleaner cans could inflict eye injury

Step away from that soldering iron and check the recall details

Reg readers should postpone plans to clean printed circuit boards, after cans of Electrolube were found to have a defect that could see the containers rupture “causing the contents to be ejected at high pressure”.

If that happens, the recall notice issued in Australia warns of “serious eye injury” as a possible consequence.

Electrolube is a cleaning product used to wash excess solder or adhesive from printed circuit boards. As such we imagine it’s rather useful to soldering-iron-wielding Reg readers whose jobs require them to surreptitiously add packet sniffers to build or modify hardware.

We’d rather those readers’ eyes remain fully operative, so we are keen to point out the Australian distributor will take back cans from the affected batches and hand over a new one that won’t burn your eyes out.

The fact that only Australia’s authorities have issued a recall notice is no cause for complacency, as recalls of this sort are nearly always global affairs. Electrolube is sold in the USA and UK.

El Reg does not know if the batches of dodgy cans have made it to those nations, but it surely cannot hurt to click on the link to the Australian recall notice before you put the product to work. ®