alexanrs wrote:

Whenever I have to wash a motherboard or expansion card I try to pour some Isopropyl afterwards so it will help the water evaporate faster and not exidate anything...

If I had an endless supply of Isopropyl, though, I'd probably never use water.

Uhh.... Good suggestion, crossed my mind once. Got away from that idea because I don't know how water and alcohol react's physically against each other. Thanks for the heads up on that one.

I always wash boards with just water and detergent. Then I dry it with a painting compressor. Never had an issue or problem and the boards looks as brand new.

Only once have I ever actually washed a motherboard with water, the board being from an old Mac Classic II. It's actually the recommended method for cleaning vintage Mac motherboards, as they are notorious for leaky caps and it's the quickest way to remove the conductive capacitor goop from the board. I don't have a dishwasher though, so I just used the hand sprayer in the kitchen sink. As the general consensus has stated, it is perfectly safe as long as batteries and other sources of power are removed, and you also allow it to thoroughly dry for a sufficient amount of time afterwards.

ramiro77 wrote:

I always wash boards with just water and detergent. Then I dry it with a painting compressor. Never had an issue or problem and the boards looks as brand new.

That works fine when your water is mineral free and your climate allows things to dry fast.

I've lived a lot of places where one or both of those isn't true which is how I ended up with a more involved process.
It should work anywhere.

It's actually based on what we did in the Navy when electronics gear got drenched in sea water - which happens now and then.
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PCBONEZ wrote:

That works fine when your water is mineral free and your climate allows things to dry fast. […]
Show full quote

ramiro77 wrote:

I always wash boards with just water and detergent. Then I dry it with a painting compressor. Never had an issue or problem and the boards looks as brand new.

That works fine when your water is mineral free and your climate allows things to dry fast.

I've lived a lot of places where one or both of those isn't true which is how I ended up with a more involved process.
It should work anywhere.

It's actually based on what we did in the Navy when electronics gear got drenched in sea water - which happens now and then.
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In fact I use mineral water from water tap (no salt). Our climate isn't too dry or too wet: we have a mixture. I use dry air from painting compressor to dry the boards and everything is fine. The only issue I had years ago was bent pins or something like that for rubbing a little too hard with a brush. Noob mistakes. I don't like to use alcohol because it leaves some stains / holograms when drying. And of course it's more expensive.

Could you explain your method? I'm intrigued.

EDIT: I use the very same method to clean cpus. The thermal paste doesn't wash with alcohol. Detergent is excelent for removing thermal paste. And the only case when I don't use common mineral water is when there are mechanical switches, relays, potentiometers or semi sealed components that couldn't be dried easily. On those cases I use isopropylic alcohol for safety purposes.

Most probably. This is done by spirit in common, not by water, especially from pipes where exists chlorine or nitrogen, dissolved rust. But it's the theory. At least to wash by water wich has orange color is not a good idea.

Tertz wrote:

Most probably. This is done by spirit in common, not by water, especially from pipes where exists chlorine or nitrogen, dissolved rust.

Where I currently live much of the city water supply comes from wells and it has a high magnesium and calcium salt content.
Even dishes from the dishwasher don't really look clean. Cascade type additives don't help much either.

Small drip-drip water leaks left alone result in little magnesium/calcium salt stalag tights and stalagmites.
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ramiro77 wrote:

Could you explain your method? I'm intrigued.

Contained in my first post in this thread.
Is on the first page here. Re: This is a bad idea right?

Sorry pcbonez. I didn't see that link. Thank you!
Water in here is pristine. It has some chlorine but nothing else. It is also suitable for drinking, although I don't.

ramiro77 wrote:

Sorry pcbonez. I didn't see that link. Thank you!
Water in here is pristine. It has some chlorine but nothing else. It is also suitable for drinking, although I don't.

Our water is chlorinated and it's safe to drink. It just doesn't taste very good and it leaves residue when it dries up.
We put filters (particulate and carbon) on the kitchen cold water tap which helps but we usually drink bottled water anyway.
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We do exactly the same (using particulate and carbon filters but we drink bottled water). We only use tap water to make mate, a traditional argentinian infusion which requires almost boil water. Although I never saw residues of chlorine left on my boards. How do you detect it? I remember seeing some white residues between pins on chipsets or pins that are very close to each other, but that looked more like calcium deposites. I never found out what it is.

Dammit, you've got me thinking of asado cooking and churros with dulce de lece.

keropi wrote:

Malvineous wrote:

@keropi: Wow that's dedication - next you'll be telling us you washed the inside of the CRT glass as well and then used a vacuum pump to reseal it 😉

need to order a vacuum pump then! 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
most of the time I am "serious" in restoration/recaping, you either do it good or not at all 😎 , plus I love that stuff 😊

Recently if had bought one of these: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Weller-Lotstation-WMD3 … u8AAOSwf-VWXs4a

Knowing that the cheaper solutions didnt helped on my desolder tasks.. If you pay less, you get less..
The bad thing is, it costs me over 1000 euros, but the good news is that this unit was still new in the package.. So after all iam very happy with my purchase.. This will surley help me on desolder / reparing task..

gdjacobs wrote:

Dammit, you've got me thinking of asado cooking and churros with dulce de lece.

I would kill for an asado right now

I have never cleaned any electronics with water... best case for me is electrical contact cleaner / cotton buds to get in the tight spots i.e. between sockets, caps, and resistors.

Even on non-pc stuff with electronic PCB's on appliances... contact cleaner takes off all the decades of caked grime and such to leave the underlying tracks and PCB all shiny and new like.

ramiro77 wrote:

Although I never saw residues of chlorine left on my boards. How do you detect it? I remember seeing some white residues between pins on chipsets or pins that are very close to each other, but that looked more like calcium deposites. I never found out what it is.

The chlorine does not leave a residue that I know of. The magnesium and calcium do.
Looks like the cloudy blotches or streaks like you might see on dishes that air dried with a trace of soap still on them.

The white stuff near groups of pins looks about the same and could be that or due to reactions with residual flux or lead.
The lead based residues are not always water soluble whereas the magnesium/calcium salt residues are.
Seems to be more common with lead free solder which is too new I think for this paper to cover.
http://www.kester.com/kester-content/uploads/ … ite_Residue.pdf
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386_junkie wrote:

I have never cleaned any electronics with water... best case for me is electrical contact cleaner / cotton buds to get in the tight spots i.e. between sockets, caps, and resistors.

Even on non-pc stuff with electronic PCB's on appliances... contact cleaner takes off all the decades of caked grime and such to leave the underlying tracks and PCB all shiny and new like.

Far too expensive for me for how often I would need it.
That stuff costs around $8 for the ~11oz can and if lucky I might get 2 boards/can out of it.
Mean Green cleans just as well and unlike contact cleaners there are no petroleum based components or issues with fumes.
1 gallon refills of Mean Green are also about $8 but will do 20-30 boards.
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I only use contact cleaner if water is out of the question, like working in the breaker box to the house.
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PCBONEZ wrote:

The Isopropyl flush will remove small amounts of oil.

I thought Isopropyl was an inorganic solvent. Are the oils in those compressed air cans organic or inorganic? I usually think of "oil" as organic.

feipoa wrote:

PCBONEZ wrote:

The Isopropyl flush will remove small amounts of oil.

I thought Isopropyl was an inorganic solvent.

It is an alcohol = organic.

It's one of the few solvents approved for use in piping associated with primary coolant in nuclear plants exactly because it's so effective at removing contaminants and it doesn't leave any residue. Most of the other approved solvents are Freon based so they are more problematic to use. Stuff like trichlorotrifluoroethane although I don't recall if that's one of the approved ones for those pipes.

feipoa wrote:

Are the oils in those compressed air cans organic or inorganic? I usually think of "oil" as organic.

Also organic. (Fossil based.)

From the MSDS for the CC-CT brand brought up earlier. (That appears to be edited out now.)
iso-Hexanes >60%
n-hexane <5%
hydrocarbon propellant 10-30% (I read somewhere that the propellant is usually butane.)

Other brands no doubt have similar stuff in them.

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n-hexane is a known neurotoxin so frequent use or use indoors is not a grand idea IMHO.
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