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Date:      Mon, 30 Dec 2002 21:55:07 -0500
From:      Jim Durham <durham@jcdurham.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Water Damage
Message-ID:  <3E11070B.5000306@jcdurham.com>
References:  <20021230110818.A91089-100000@cactus.fi.uba.ar>

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Fernando Gleiser wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote:
> 
> 
>>>I have carefully dried out all the units.
>>
>>You may want to use some distilled water, or very clean water, if there is
>>any visible residue/chalk/salt on the boards.
> 
> 
> After that, you can rinse it with isopropyl(sp) alcohol, this is the alcohol
> used to wash the PCBs after soldering. After the rinse, the alcohol
> evaporates very quickly.
> 
That's an excellent idea because the alcohol will "absorb" the water (I 
believe the correct term is that water is "misable" in alcohol), so when 
the alcohol evaporates it takes the water with it.

I work for a company that operates large television trucks full of 
expensive gear that occasionally gets wet from leaks, road spray, etc.
We have had good luck with filling the janitor's "slop sink" up with hot
water and dousing the equipment in there to remove any salt. If the 
water you had was not salt, you probably don't need to do this, but I 
mentioned it just to show that most modern solid state gear with sealed 
chips is pretty resistant to water damage, as the gear would work after 
we dried it out. As was mentioned, power supplies are the worst, as the 
voltages can be much higher on certain parts of those boards.

As to reliability, I'd guess if you watch it for a few days and it's OK,
then go with it! Operating it will generate some nice heat to finish the
drying out and a few days of this should make it or break it.

-Jim



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