Washing an Aurora

[ppppenguin]

I won't name the forum member concerned but recently I received a PM about an Aurora that had suffered from an overdose of dog pee.

My advice was to take the PCB out of the case and wash it with water. A little mild detrergent won't hurt either. Rinse thoroughly and ideally do a final rinse with distilled or de-ionised water. Then leave in a warm place such an airing cupboard for 48 hours.

I am glad to report that the Aurora is fine after its ordeal.

If you suffer a similar accident the most urgent thing is to remove power and wash it ASAP before corrosion sets in. Same advice applies to all sorts of modern electronics that has suffered a ducking. Mobile phone dropped in the loo perhaps? I will admit that a friend's phone that went through a complete washing machine cycle was beyond redemption.

[Steve_P]

Another reason to have cats instead of dogs....

Anyway, I hope that there aren't any traces of the substance in question left underneath any surface mount IC's. The unit will continue to work for a time and then it will never work again when the substance eats through tracks.

Dilys left her mobile phone out one night and it rained. I got it working by doing the very thing you suggest but it only lasted a month. And, in true women's fashion, she blamed me for it!

Just something to watch out for,

Cheers,

Steve P.

[Ray Cooper]

A good many electronics components are pretty-well hermetically sealed these days - but some are not. Switches may or may not survive this treatment: some of the older wafer switches (and printed-circuit boards) were constructed from SRBP, which is not always a waterproof medium, and sometimes takes up moisture which can cause mysterious leakage effects until it has thoroughly dried out. Any wound components should be assessed closely beforehand: if they've been well impregnated with varnish they may be OK, but any component where the winding layers are visible probably won't.

As an aside: back in the 'fifties, Tektronix always subjected returned faulty test gear before repair to a good washing with warm water and detergent, followed by rinsing and thorough drying-out. They reckoned that after this, about half of the reported faults had simply disappeared. But it's important to remember that all of the components that Tektronix used were designed to be able to withstand this sort of treatment: there's no guarantee that any components of your own whose provenance isn't completely understood will do as well...

[audiomagpie]

'bet it receives the soaps ok now

My sons mobile phone with a touch screen went through a full wash cycle whilst in the pocket of his fleece. Immediately we discovered this, I dismantled it as far as I could, rinsed with water and used a cotton bud with meths on all the tiny connections. Dried it on the radiator for a couple of days, re assembled and it's worked fine ever since, even the touch screen functions.

As you say Jeffrey, the most important thing is to was out any corrosives asap.

Greg

[Boom]

About a year ago I put my mobile phone - which was in its carry case - in its usual place on top of the fish tank cover. Without seeing it my OH open the lid to feed the fish and in the phone went. She called me to get it out. It had been in the water at the bottom of the tank for about 30 seconds.

I took the battery out and got prepared to claim on my house insurance. I wasn't too happy as it takes me a long time to get used to a mobile phone and this model is no longer made (Nokia 6230i. I've got a Blackberry but can't get past turning it on.)

I took the phone apart and left it to dry which took 2 days and totally to my suprise when I put it back together it worked fine! After a couple of days the audio started going funny but this was traced to a bit of water left in the loudspeaker which a bit more heat cured. It has worked fine ever since.

My daughter has just got a Jack Russell puppy and I've just realised that my Aurora sits on the floor behind the hi-fi cabinet so that will be moved very soon after reading this thread.

[Dave Moll]

This reminds me of a USB memory stick I mislaid for about a month - having inadvertently left it in a shirt pocket. I eventually found it rattling around in the washing machine. Meanwhile it must have been through the wash at least four times.

When I had finally found it and left it to dry out, despite a little rust around the USB connector, it worked fine complete with all the data uncorrupted. Of course, this has the advantage of having no moving parts.

[murphyv310]

In reply to Steve's comment in post 2, I can assure you the opposite Cats are far worse than dogs!
No doubt I will be scorned, banned and all sorts of other things with voodoo dolls etc but the number of sets that have been written off with cats P** I have come across is quite horrendous.

Indeed the only way to clean any item soiled by this type of contamination, coke, beer or any other sugar based fluid is water, plenty of it and possibly a drop of washing up liquid and then a thorough rising with warm water.
Drying with a hairdryer is advisable to blow droplets of water from under component, then sitting the device on a radiator or airing cupboard for final drying will effect a cure.
I normally spray the board with a light coat of WD40 to keep corrosion out.

[mark pirate]

Cats pee is definately worse than dogs, i remember being given a video for repair that had been the victim of a cat, the smell was vile!
The corrosive nature of this meant the video was a write off, the corrosion to the pcb's had to be seen to be believed
I too have had my mobile go through the wash, in was only when the washing was put in the tumble dryer that it was discovered, due to the loud clonking noise comming from the dryer, even with my best efforts, it never worked again, at least the sim card survived!

Mark

[McMurdo]

I often have to wash pcbs in water. Alot of modern manufacturing uses water at the post-solder phases anyway because it is more environmentally friendly than the usual solvents.

One of my main lines of work is pro audio (theatre, nightclub, pub, studio) and the number of mixing desks and broadcast equipment that gets coffee or beer knocked into them is appalling! Who balances their coffe mug on a £50,000 mixing desk or places a pint of beer next to a £1200 pro cd player?

For beverage ingress, solvent wont work, it has to be water. First, I examine the pcb with an eyeglass to note areas that might be corroded; areas of verdigris etc or sticky spots of evaporated drink that may harbour corrosion. Then I get the boards (multilayer, surface mount, BGA etc) in hot water & fairy liquid in the sink and scrub them with a large paint brush. Once rinsed in fresh water, they go in the oven for 3-4 hours with just the pilot light on, or I take them home and put them in the boiler cupboard overnight. Once clean, any tracks that have rotted through get repaired, then the board tested.

I had a particularly nasty one the other day where, despite doing all the above, an LED VU meter was doing random stuff on a mixing desk. I had to remove all the driver chips (DIL) and found several tracks under the chips o/c. This is where the liquid had been harboured no doubt for weeks!

It is easier to avoid this sort of thing if, as already suggested, the thing is dealt with at the time or soon after the incident; far more difficult if it is one of those repairs for a third party who has continued to use the affected article for days or weeks after the spill (optimistically waving a hairdryer over the case of the unit) until a track finally rots or something tracks through.

Beer and sugary drinks are the worst, never knowingly repaired a 'doggy' appliance but certainly tomcat...and...tragically, once...... 'human'...

[ALANS ANITAS]

About five years ago my elder daughter's Panasonic Sky Box suffered a similar fate. One of her cats relieved herself over the box, but I did not get to it in time. Luckily I had a spare box. The cat survived until last month.

ALAN

[Jason Pero]

Usually I was able to rescue 2 items, was JVC 32" and RCA 50" PRTV that were sprayed by owners' cat. Nasty!

JVC 32" I simply took innards out and washed it with oxiclean and sprayed all over and let it dry for a month. Spring into life like there was no problem and smelled nice.

RCA 50" I had to take apart the small signal board where cat sprayed urine landed and repair the corroded traces and got it spring to life. Cleaned other things. Big job and owner is happy.

Cheers, Wizard

[tubesrule]

Years ago most electronic assemblies were washed in solvents, typically a form of Freon to remove the RMA fluxes. Because of environmental restrictions, almost nothing is solvent cleaned anymore. While many assemblies do go through a water wash, including the Aurora, even this is becoming more difficult because the contaminants have to be removed from the water before disposal. NoClean fluxes are now the norm, although I don't like using them for many reasons, not the least being the board is left with a sticky, messy coating.

As long as it's possibly, I'll continue to have the Aurora converters built with water wash fluxes. This means that all the parts, including the rotary switch are water wash compatible, so you can clean them with no worries. I usually hand wash prototypes in the kitchen sink with a little dish soap, but I've also put prototypes through the dishwasher for a real thorough cleaning

Darryl

[ppppenguin]

Conversation that may have been overheard many years ago

I washed my parrot in Persil the other day

What happened?

It died

I told you you shouldn't wash a parrot in Persil!

It wasn't the Persil that killed it, it was the spin dryer!

And that immortal Larsen cartoon "Cat Fud" http://beaudryfamily.blogspot.com/20...r-thought.html

[KeithsTV]

About 20 years ago my wife dropped our point & press auto everything camera in a stream during a walk. The water sent the camera into a wierd mode writing off the film that was in it. I managed to take it apart and carefully cleaned the boards with fresh water and Iso Propyl Alcohol, dried it carefully, put it back together and it lasted at least another 10 years until we went digital. I think if I put new batteries and a film in it now it would still work.

Had it been sea water it would have been a write off.

As has been said many boards are cleaned with water during the manufacturing process or use no clean fluxes (which introduce a whole new set of issues) so cleaning with water should usually pose no problems.

Keith

[Mike Phelan]

When I restored and sold ex-rental CTVs - mainly G6, K70 and Körting 54660, I always stuck PCBs in the bath with warm water and washing-up liquid, followed by a good rinse and a week in the airing cupboard.

Never the slightest problem.

[Heatercathodeshort]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

In reply to Steve's comment in post 2, I can assure you the opposite Cats are far worse than dogs!
No doubt I will be scorned, banned and all sorts of other things with voodoo dolls etc but the number of sets that have been written off with cats P** I have come across is quite horrendous.

I am not a cat lover to be honest so put my cards on the table. I will back Trevor all the way on this one. I had dozens of video recorders in particular written off due to cat pee. The odd thing about it the customers were completely unaware of it despite the entire shop and workshop wreaking from the contaminated machines. What the houses must have smelled like one can only imagine! I once had a VCR brought in the shop door with the pee running out of the base of it! It completely etches the circuit boards after a relatively short period. Nothing can be done.
Dog pee is more easy to deal with being more like human and I guess that is why the AURORA was saved. I managed to rescue most of doggy and toddler ones simply by the method suggested by Jeffrey. After all you have nothing to loose.
John Cleese did a television advert for the Sony C6 VCR with the punch line 'So simple, even the cat can use it'. They certainly did! Regards, John.

[flyingtech55]

I can also confirm the aggressive nature of cat p**. We got an Hitachi VT8000 VCR in which believe it or was used by the owners cat as its bed. The cat had the inevitable accident and the VCR arrived for repair. When we opened it, the components fell away from the large bottom board which had virtually no copper left on it. It had even eaten away the component leads so the component bodies were left rattling about in the bottom of the machine. A complete and total right off.

On a similar note, shampoo can be every corrosive too. A customer brought in an expensive Sony Walkman which had been in her cosmetics case when her shampoo bottle leaked and the contents saturated the Walkman. All the metal work was completely corroded and the machine was wrecked.

TimR

[ppppenguin]

The key here is immediate action. If you can wash off the pee, shampoo etc PDQ then the chances of survival are good. Also turn off the power immediately, especially in mobile phones where you need to get the battery out ASAP. Incidentally, I can assure you Guinness is definitely not good for the faders in a vision mixer.

[julie_m]

Agree with Jeffrey -- speed is of the essence when dealing with wet electronics. Forcibly deprive the equipment of power (electricity can help chemical reactions along) and get the stuff washed off as soon as possible. The last wash should be in de-ionised water, so as not to leave any charged particles kicking around.

Some venues are designed with no level surfaces anywhere near the mixing desk / DJ area, precisely so drinks can't be rested there and then spilt over equipment.

[Electricdreams]

I dropped my iphone twice into water. Both times I immediately switched off and let it dry in a airing cupboard. It still works afterwards. Just thought I'd mention it.