Re: Corrosion...

Dave George wrote:
>
> I'm cleaning it off, and I'm wondering 2 things right now:
>
> 1) How do I know when the corrosion has been neutralized? Right now,
> the board still looks fairly crusty/vertigree.
>
> 2) How long does a board usually need to dry, before it's plugged in
> again? Mostly I'm thinking of the connectors themselves, the board
> seems fairly dry.
>
> As a sidenote, was I correct is assuming that for the most part, the
> components are water resistant (bad time to ask, huh =) ) as far as
> rinsing the board down?

I wash down populated circuit boards every day. We use a cleaning
solution called Simple Green, which comes in concentrated form. You mix
a few parts of water with it. Great stuff for removing dirt and
debris.

As for drying the boards, we use an air compressor hose to blow-dry
them. It's possible to damage a board with air pressure too high, of
course, so one must be careful. After removing most of the excess
water, we then dry it in a sorta-kinda-oven. It's basically a wooden
box with some heat lamps inside. I've seen other people leave boards
out in the backyard under the hot sun, or bake them in a kitchen
convection oven at low temperature for about 20 minutes.

Resistors, capacitors, transistors, integrated circuits, etc. are all
generally tolerant of water and being washed. Transformers, however,
can contain nooks and crannies for water to get into. Generally, don't
wash down flybacks if you can avoid it.

HTH,

Matt J. McCullar
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Received on Thu Jun 01 22:48:30 2000