Re: washing and drying boards?

Offered for your amusement...

http://www.multigame.com/clean_MJ.JPG

(Controller boards on bottom, Edge boards on top ;-)

When it comes to old boards, I like a two-step process:

Part 1:
a) Remove socketed chips
b) spray with 409
c) scrub lightly with a clean paint-brush (or toothbrush if it's really
nasty)
d) wash off with tap-water

Part 2:
a) make sure wife is gone for a few hours
b) put board in dishwasher (no soap)
c) run for a cycle
d) shake dry, then pat with good towel
e) double-check that wife is still gone
f) pre-heat oven to lowest setting (170F on ours)
g) turn oven *off*, then put board in and let sit for a few hours.

(should probably technically really use distilled water, but I never had any
problems)

If at all possible I try not to wash potentiometers, crystals, unsealed
switches, or relays. Vibrations from a dish-washer (or an ultra-sonic
cleaner in particular) can kinda "weld" relays shut-- a hard whack on the
counter will generally "un-weld" them.

Oh, it's *really* bad to have a board in the oven and have your significant
other turn the oven to "preheat" to bake a cake and leave the room... (When
this happens, turn the oven *off*, open the windows, and let the board cool
before removing it-- lowtemp solder can reflow at ~330F or so, grabbing the
board right away might wind up with a bunch of solder in the bottom of the
oven! Boards seem to survive this BTW, not much worse than the
assembly-line as long as it wasn't for *too* long. Sending flowers the next
day is probably smart. ;-)

-Clay
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Received on Mon Apr 2 02:47:40 2001