Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!jarthur!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!hale!whinery
From: whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: motherboards in the dishwasher?
Summary: Rinse that mother!
Message-ID: <12923@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Date: 8 May 91 21:09:43 GMT
Sender: news@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu
Organization: Institute For Astronomy, Hawaii
Lines: 29
Reference: <0094836B.DA657A80@Eagle.oscs.montana.edu>

In article <0094836B.DA657A80@Eagle.oscs.montana.edu> ieeug330@Eagle.oscs.montana.edu (Mark Wistey) writes:
>(From a thread in comp.sys.apple2)
>Someone claimed that the best way to clean a contaminated (e.g. soda pop)
>computer keyboard was to disconnect it and run it under tap water.  I thought
>water was enough of a solvent to cause damage to circuit boards.  Who's right?
>What's the best way to clean a pop-filled keyboard?  (BTW, it's not mine.)

Actually the idea of the dishwasher scares me -- all that heat. But as 
far as rinsing a board, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you 
can dry it fast. The danger from water only comes from being energized, 
when things short to other things. I recall one incident (don't try this 
at home) when I was a consultant to the Navy when 3 entire computers
were dropped into SALT water. They were retrieved, hosed out, and 
blown dry with a high pressure air hose. Two of the 3 passed diagnostics.

Here at my present job, we frequently do final cleaning on prototype
boards with trichloroethylene, after which they are rinsed with tap
water and blown dry with an air hose. I don't know what the ramifications
of not blowing it out would be, but if you use your head and be careful
of nooks and crannies where water would hole up, it should work OK.

Alan
whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu

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|  D. Alan Whinery| The Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii   |
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