Formic acid

... we can see it.

Uh, starting on the PCBA side, uh, some of the new, uh, the more recent changes has been the introduction of formic acid to try-

Yeah

... and reduce all that nasty flux p- problems that we have in these machines.

Um, what has been Heller's solution there?

So we started working, uh, on formic acid with digital equipment back in the '90s.

[laughs]

Uh, that's when we built our first formic machine.

I just got panic-stricken and ran.

Yeah, murder's a pretty scary thing.

Murder? What do you mean, Mr.

Spade?

Mrs. Cavanaugh died from a hypodose of formic acid.

Trevor.

So when we last spoke, it was Productronica, of course, in Germany, where you introduced a revolutionary new system which replaces flux in the reflow process using formic acid.

So maybe we can have a recap, first of all, over why you did that, what the benefits of formic acid are, and how has it been accepted in the market?

Yeah, thank you for this question.

Very important is the flux-free soldering.

We can avoid this with the flux-free soldering.

And flux-free soldering means flux before reduces oxidation, covered oxidation.

So what we can do is now we use the formic acid instead of the flux and the paste is also prepared now to print in a complete line.

They treat it with one of the organic acids.

And the reason I'm emphasizing that is oxalic and formic are made of compounds that are found in nature.

Formic, of course, is both in honey.

It's also in ant venom.

And then oxalic, of course, is in tiny, tiny amounts in rhubarb and other naturally found things.