element14 Community
element14 Community
    Register Log In
  • Site
  • Search
  • Log In Register
  • About Us
  • Community Hub
    Community Hub
    • What's New on element14
    • Feedback and Support
    • Benefits of Membership
    • Personal Blogs
    • Members Area
    • Achievement Levels
  • Learn
    Learn
    • Ask an Expert
    • eBooks
    • element14 presents
    • Learning Center
    • Tech Spotlight
    • STEM Academy
    • Webinars, Training and Events
    • Learning Groups
  • Technologies
    Technologies
    • 3D Printing
    • FPGA
    • Industrial Automation
    • Internet of Things
    • Power & Energy
    • Sensors
    • Technology Groups
  • Challenges & Projects
    Challenges & Projects
    • Design Challenges
    • element14 presents Projects
    • Project14
    • Arduino Projects
    • Raspberry Pi Projects
    • Project Groups
  • Products
    Products
    • Arduino
    • Avnet Boards Community
    • Dev Tools
    • Manufacturers
    • Multicomp Pro
    • Product Groups
    • Raspberry Pi
    • RoadTests & Reviews
  • Store
    Store
    • Visit Your Store
    • Choose another store...
      • Europe
      •  Austria (German)
      •  Belgium (Dutch, French)
      •  Bulgaria (Bulgarian)
      •  Czech Republic (Czech)
      •  Denmark (Danish)
      •  Estonia (Estonian)
      •  Finland (Finnish)
      •  France (French)
      •  Germany (German)
      •  Hungary (Hungarian)
      •  Ireland
      •  Israel
      •  Italy (Italian)
      •  Latvia (Latvian)
      •  
      •  Lithuania (Lithuanian)
      •  Netherlands (Dutch)
      •  Norway (Norwegian)
      •  Poland (Polish)
      •  Portugal (Portuguese)
      •  Romania (Romanian)
      •  Russia (Russian)
      •  Slovakia (Slovak)
      •  Slovenia (Slovenian)
      •  Spain (Spanish)
      •  Sweden (Swedish)
      •  Switzerland(German, French)
      •  Turkey (Turkish)
      •  United Kingdom
      • Asia Pacific
      •  Australia
      •  China
      •  Hong Kong
      •  India
      •  Korea (Korean)
      •  Malaysia
      •  New Zealand
      •  Philippines
      •  Singapore
      •  Taiwan
      •  Thailand (Thai)
      • Americas
      •  Brazil (Portuguese)
      •  Canada
      •  Mexico (Spanish)
      •  United States
      Can't find the country/region you're looking for? Visit our export site or find a local distributor.
  • Translate
  • Profile
  • Settings
PCB Design, Prototyping and Production
  • Products
  • More
PCB Design, Prototyping and Production
PCB Blogs Experimentation with the UL 94V-0 designation of printed circuit boards
  • Blog
  • Forum
  • Documents
  • Leaderboard
  • Files
  • Members
  • Mentions
  • Sub-Groups
  • Tags
  • More
  • Cancel
  • New
Join PCB Design, Prototyping and Production to participate - click to join for free!
  • Share
  • More
  • Cancel
Group Actions
  • Group RSS
  • More
  • Cancel
Engagement
  • Author Author: wolfgangfriedrich
  • Date Created: 1 Oct 2023 3:55 PM Date Created
  • Views 3170 views
  • Likes 7 likes
  • Comments 8 comments
  • pcb
  • fire
  • fiberglass
  • 94V-0
  • very sad
Related
Recommended

Experimentation with the UL 94V-0 designation of printed circuit boards

wolfgangfriedrich
wolfgangfriedrich
1 Oct 2023

Disclaimer: This post is rated VS (very sad); continue reading at your own risk.

Extreme temperature testing is nothing a hobbyist is normally even thinking about. The 94V-0 flammability rating that is printed on most production PCBs basically states that the PCB (and only the PCB) would stop burning within 10 seconds after being subjected to vertical combustion. For more detailed reading about this topic, I recommend IEC 60695-11-10 and 60695-11-20 and ISO 9772 and 9773.

I had the opportunity to test all (ha!) my PCBs for flammability and wanted to share some results.

First up is a panelized small board. The disintegrated weaved fiberglass layers are nicely visible. Copper traces are totally gone, the green hue might be oxidized copper or leftovers from the blue soldermask. Colours behave funny in heat, I found a glass orb that used to be stained blue and now was completely clear. Original pictures of the small panel for comparison.

image image

image image

And here is one of my Pixi analog boards with holes, pads and traces still visible. Yes, this is an Arduino Uno shield, again with the original boards for comparison.

image

image image

Components also seem to be somewhat fire retardant. A unidentified board with visible skeletons of resistors and a TSSOP-20 chip. Not sure if they make good Halloween decorations.

image

Other interesting stuff:
A wire clipper, which btw won me a Rock'n Roll speaker to start my lab again.

image

Enamel coated cups and ceramics survived the best. Tools like pliers and tweezers, even stainless, not so much. And a dishwasher safe ceramic bowl in a not so happy dishwasher.

image image

Exact temperatures are not known as the test setup was rather random. But I have fund Pyrex bowls melted into blobs of glass or fused together in shape. Things like my beloved Metcal GT-120 soldering iron and 858D hot air pencil did not stand a chance and the trusted Tek MSO2024B simply disintegrated during the event.

GT-120 and 585D Disappointed :

image

This all happened to me earlier this year during the Tantallon wildfire in Nova Scotia, which burnt down 150 homes including mine.

Kids, listen. Data back-up is important, but it only works if it is off-site either on somebody else's computer (the cloud) or diligently managed by a swarm of carrier pigeons. Here is an ASUSTOR 1102 NAS drive with 2x 4TB hard-drives. I doubt any data recovery service is going to find any '1's and '0's in the correct order on this one.

image

If you are wondering why I even wrote this post; talking about it is part of the processing of the events and dealing with the aftermath in a (sort of) lighter way helps me moving forward. The old projects needed some sort of closure before I can move on, recreating some of them again or using this as an opportunity for doing something completely different. Thanks for reading.

 - W.
 

  • Sign in to reply

Top Comments

  • javagoza
    javagoza over 2 years ago +1
  • wolfgangfriedrich
    wolfgangfriedrich over 1 year ago in reply to genebren

    Thanks so much. Everybody here will know when I do cool stuff again, because I am going to post it here for sure. This is a lovely place to be. 

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • dougw
    dougw over 1 year ago in reply to wolfgangfriedrich

    No problem. Hang in there. Good luck with the recovery process.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • wolfgangfriedrich
    wolfgangfriedrich over 1 year ago in reply to dougw

    Thanks, dougw. This is so generous, but at the moment I don't have the space, time or motivation to use this one. Maybe in the not too distant future. 

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • genebren
    genebren over 2 years ago

    That is very sad!  I wish you luck as you move forward from the devastating loss. Your process may be long, but reach out to your friends here to help you rebuild and move forward.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • dougw
    dougw over 2 years ago

    What a depressing disaster.

    I have a Tektronix TBS 1052B-EDU scope you can have if it is of any use and if we can figure out how to get it to you.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
>
element14 Community

element14 is the first online community specifically for engineers. Connect with your peers and get expert answers to your questions.

  • Members
  • Learn
  • Technologies
  • Challenges & Projects
  • Products
  • Store
  • About Us
  • Feedback & Support
  • FAQs
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal and Copyright Notices
  • Sitemap
  • Cookies

An Avnet Company © 2025 Premier Farnell Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Premier Farnell Ltd, registered in England and Wales (no 00876412), registered office: Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds LS12 2NE.

ICP 备案号 10220084.

Follow element14

  • X
  • Facebook
  • linkedin
  • YouTube