RE: Cleaning boards

> I agree with all the above, all the components are hermetically seal
> and soap
> and water is not going to hurt them.
>
> I do remove the brightness control from Cinematronics monitor boards
> before I
> hose them down, and it might be a good idea to either remove (or at
> least place
> a piece of tape over) the trim pots the might be on a board.
>
I too use 409 to clean monitor chassis (think I learned it from Joel),
but I take a cheap 2" paintbrush and kinda "dust" (not really scrub) the
board with the 409 on it. Cleans stuff up nicely. A garden hose and a
couple hot days of drying seem to do the rest. The cheap metal pots on
monitor chassis hold up well to water-washing, but before you do this to
something like a game PCB you'd be well advised to follow Zonn's idea to
put some tape over them. Water in a trimpot can take forever to dry
out.

I also use our electric oven to dry boards out-- set it to 170F (as low
as ours goes), pre-heat it, and just put the boards in and turn the oven
off. Leave 'em in for about 30-45 minutes. Nice-n-dry.

If you're going to use an ultrasonic cleaner be careful to not do
crystals, relays, transformers, or trimpots (among others). (The
crystals can be damaged by ultrasonics, the relays can "weld" together
 from the vibration, and water penetration in transformers and pots can
be sever with the sonics on...)

-Clay
Received on Fri May 29 10:46:06 1998