General > General Technical Chat
Water and Electronics
jonovid:
when is it Ok to mix water with electronics?
have this philips 170B pc lcd monitor I found abandoned in the street, but as it was raining at the time.
the PC monitor was soaking wet, believing it to be only good for scraping , I did put it aside at home for a month.
to dry out, then just a day before I was about to start scraping it for copper, I did a test just to see if it would work or go Pop!
to my surprise it still worked, so I left it running on the bench for 24hrs just to see if it would give up the magic smoke,
but it did not. ???
just this week I seen another video that had something about water & electronics
here is two videos, one is the 8 bit guy washing a V20 pcb and the other is Techmoan and about
air compressors been bad for cleaning electronics as that may have water droplets in the air
I have always believed water & electronics do not mix, so its there something I am missing here?
is there an exception to the rule? :-//
Restoration - The Worst VIC-20 I've ever seen - Part 1 8 bit guy youtube.
at 15:12 he uses water on the pcb. rinse it off with the hose! that is a garden hose on electronics. :scared:
PCB DUST-OFF Ryobi mini compressor vs Compu-Cleaner Xpert Techmoan youtube.
at 15:11 to 15:45
Wallace Gasiewicz:
I know a couple old TV repairmen who used to take dirty TV chassis to the car wash to clean them before working on anything. They would wait for a nice sunny day so they could put the wet electronics in the driveway to dry out.
Apparently this worked just fine.
Another Ham Radio repair guy who charged over $100 an hour cleaned PCB boards in his dishwasher. This took all of the old solder flux left by previous repair, but it really aggravated his wife. He had videos on youtube showing how he did this.
Most electronic components are sealed from moisture quite well, both the really old stuff and the new stuff.
One danger is that water will get into the PCB board and expand it though....
I have washed lots of stuff in water and soap and never had a problem.
rhb:
Things like transformers with paper insulation, paper core PCB don't like water, but most things don't care. So modest care will do. The main thing is make sure it is *completely* dry before applying power.
I would not use a dishwasher though. The detergent is corrosive and the water is quite hot. Hand soap and a brush are my normal choice if it needs water. Flux is best removed with isopropyl alcohol and a brush.
Have Fun!
Reg
rdl:
https://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/tektronix_washing_your_instrument.html
VK3DRB:
Biggest mistake is leaving a battery in. Then you get corrosion. Also piezoelectric and paper cone speakers don't like water ingress either. The other issue is for ultra fine electronics you can get dendrites growing in the entrapped moisture between pins.
A non-serviceable keyboard that has a problem with repeating characters, sticky keys, food and gunk under keytops, or not recognising a keypress can be fixed by soaking it in warm water with a small amount of dish washing liquid, then rinsing it in clean water, then putting them in the oven on the lowest heat setting possible. Use a toothbrush to clean the gunk between the keys. I have done this a couple of times over the years and it works. Better than buying a new keyboard.
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