Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

When using the DataVac to clean a PC, I always attach a mains earth to the case of the equipment, that way any charge should be reduced if not completely eliminated. I use an old mains plug with about 10ft of earth cable and a crocodile clip.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

With a bit of patience you can adapt your household vacuum cleaner..for example the wand pipe on my Dyson is 25mm dia. so you can adapt a piece of 22mm plumbing pipe to fit the hose that attaches to this pipe.You can then fit a plumbing 22mm to 15mm reducer and then a 15mm to 10mm reducer..on this attach some flexible pipe and on the end of this fit a piece of broken car aerial which you can shape into a spade ..and you then have a powerful small vac taking all the nasties into a proper bag or container.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

This is a great idea, and a variation on one I had toyed with recently having acquired a few valve sets full of fluffy dust. Wish I'd acted on the thought to be honest as since cleaning out my latest, Grundig 2065 set, I'm down with something that's giving me a nasty headache and sapping my energy. I half suspect it's the contents of said dust that is the cause. :wall:

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

I'd second that. Avoid airborne dust! Even if inert, it clogs lungs. And if it's not, it could be serious. I heard of a vacuum cleaner demonstrator who had a dust bag burst on him. He was hospitalised.

And the dust in an old radio is just the same as vacuum cleaner dust. Not worth making it airborne and breathing in. We have only two lungs, and neither can be replaced.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

I've tried my handheld Vax on the items I was cleaning but it didn't seem to want to suck up much settled & clumped up dust, but could cope with it after I had loosened it up with a half inch paint brush.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

That was the first time for me, was laid off work and taking pills for at least fortnight before I fully recovered, I was mucking out some sawdust, it was what was growing on it that got me, my breathing tubes or whatever reacted badly, basically struggling to breath, badly so and it all happened very fast, I must have mucked out tons of sawdust over the years before that incident with no protection whatsoever and not suffered any ill effects.

The second time it happened I was down the woods for the weekend to do some firewood got there late at night, pitched the Vango got a fire going for a fry up, dragged a few bits of timber around for the fire, some was a bit damp, threw it on the fire anyways, then the wind changed, breathed in a load of smoke, within a couple of minutes I was getting a wiff of the same symptoms as before but managed to lie down and reverse the situation, daylight came and I looked at the firewood I was using, some kind of fungus/bacteria on it, same as the other incident I suspect.

So that's the lesson, I suspect that wood dust from woodworm infestation could also carry the same nasty.

Lawrence.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

From time to time Lidl have an attachment that is a small diameter pipe and nozzle about 18 inches long with a rubber end that fits most vacuum cleaner nozzles. Meant to go behind radiators. Think it cost about £2.50.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

I love the way we digress. I think it's a measure of our 'breadth of thought' that attracts us to old radios? We've gone from hand held canned air, through compressors, vacuum cleaners and a whole host of attachments both original and home brewed. Long may it entertain!

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

...... not to mention serious lung conditions!

Alan

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Don't forget that most compressed air contains moisture if not water, unless of course a filter is fitted. So you might be making a bad job worse. Personally I use an old vacuum cleaner which I've had for more than 40 years and paint brush. Ted

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Vidjoman says Lidl sometimes do proper attachments but if you cannot find them then the plumbing bits are all cheap.Not sure if vacuum cleaners have standard size hoses but plumbing pipes I think come in 40mm and 32mm (drainage) sizes and 22mm, 15mm and 10mm (water) sizes ..the reducer to 10mm is probably the key ingredient as you probably have some old rubber etc pipe around somewhere that will fit it, the wand at the end can be made of metal (ie say an old car aerial piece) which you can fashion to your spec and squash seal with a jubilee clip. as it is all cheap plastic you can chop around/glue straight in a 15mm to 10mm elbow reducer to a larger pipe. If your new attachment pipe is slack in the vacuum cleaner pipe then in my case a ribbed seal trimmed from a gutter piece did the job suitably glued.
The result is you have something more powerful than some of these small mickey mouse devices and you know where the dust is going.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Don't use a domestic vacuum cleaner that you would normally use around the house for sucking unknown muck and dust out of old radios.

Radios could have spent years in unknown environments such as interwar and post war council houses that have had asbestos cut, drilled and removed in circumstances that wouldn't be allowed today - and guess where all the dust and nasty stuff ends up....

If you must use a vacuum, then use a dedicated one that remains out in the shed and is labeled to state its use.

The filtering in a domestic vacuum cleaner will NOT filter out the harmful dust and potentially dangerous other stuff. The output vent will blast it, unseen, around your entire house. Why take the risk of developing some incurable lung disease twenty years down the line, even if you don't care about yourself, consider your loved ones that are in the house with you. My house is full of dust, but I do know that it ain't blown out of old radios etc.

I only ever 'blow' and I do it outside well away from the house and with a long wand on the output of the cleaner, standing up-wind and preferably when a neighbour isn't standing just on the other side of any nearby fences - a dampish day is also better.

So to sum up - NO vacuuming with a cleaner that you're going to be using in the house the next day. I suppose something like a Dyson could be washed out to decontaminate it and its filters removed, bagged and binned, being replaced with new ones before re-use around the house.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

ha ha i remember in my younger days working at a garage and using their compressor to blow away the dust out of a valve radio. The radio was working before blowing high pressure air into it, after that it didn't just squealed a lot. I use paint brush and vacuum cleaner now.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

When 'sucking', you have to be careful not to suck up any of those little original labels that often come unstuck from the chassis itself or other components, and go unnoticed into the cleaner. I find when blowing, that I generally spot them flying off and can retrieve them before they blow away and get lost altogether. After the main, more 'distant' blowing out, I then get up closer with the soft paint brush. Unregulated compressed air is really too harsh for delicate cleaning, so an ordinary old vacuum cleaner on blow is the best option if you've got one, or perhaps one of those air pumps as previously mentioned by someone.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

You can use compressed air that's as 'powerful as you like'. Just be aware of its power and don't blow too close to the set. Blow from about 2ft away for starters and take it from there, moving in on stubborn stuff if need be whilst ensuring that there's nothing delicate next door. It's just common sense. I use both my Hurricane rechargeable hand held 'can' and also my floor compressor depending on the size and nature of the job.

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Turn your can of "Canned Air " upside down to get a can of "Freeze Spray".
Only difference is the length of the tube inside the can. Short tube for the freeze, long for the air.( Or was that vice versa?).

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Be careful using extra-small nozzles on domestic vacuum cleaners. Most use the airflow to cool their motor and if they don't get enough, the motor temperatures shoot up. Use the small nozzle for short bursts and in between let air flow in freely.

David

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Absolutely!

I should have said this, but forgot.

I remove the hose from the top of the unit if I'm going for a long, drawn out 'blowing' and pull the hose from the outlet of the unit every so often to let it run unobstructed for a short while so that the fan can cool the motor before carrying on with the blowing out.

Here's what I use - that hose will soon have more Gaffer and Sellotape than original hose material;D

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

Yep, me too. Don't take dust inhalation lightly - as has been mentioned elsewhere it's not dust that carries you off but what the dust carries that might. Having repaired power supplies that are used in a variety of industrial concerns, I wouldn't dream of blasting the dust out with a compressor - you often have no idea what you would be breathing in - it's simply not worth the risk IMHO >((

Re: Using Canned Air For Removing Dust
 

I think Dyson must have used some 1" iron pipe as the model for their connectors. I made an adaptor for my Dyson from a piece of 1" BSP iron pipe, a perfect sliding fit in the socket. 1" iron pipe was a loose fits in a piece of plastic waster pipe, so I shimmed it with some plastic sheeting that I get from a model shop and fixed it in place with some Plastic Padding, trimmed some of the plastic pipe away, and filed a groove in the iron pipe so that the adaptor locks into place on the Dyson hose. The bore of the plastic waste pipe is a good fit to the outer diameter of the corrugated plastic hose I use for dust extraction for my router.