I'm relocating to an RV for a year or two, and I've got my collection of now 40+ desktops. Is there anything special yall can think to do besides pull batteries. I'm in Texas and its not a tempature controlled storage building so can freeze in winter and can easily hit 150-160 in summer inside that nice non insulated metal building.
Put them in a plastic bag with a bag of moisture absorbing silica. Also keep them away from direct sunlight.
A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Aztech Pro16 II-3D PnP ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!
dominusprog wrote on 2024-02-04, 17:34:Put them in a plastic bag with a bag of moisture absorbing silica. Also keep them away from direct sunlight.
it's a closed metal building no chance of sunlight, as for silica yea not a bad idea I'll order some trash bags and some of those or maybe just shove a big box of them into storage
My main concern would be humidity and corrosion. If it's in a dry environment then that's probably not an issue. But some silica absorbent as suggested wouldn't hurt.
The other concern would be thermal stress causing expansion and contraction on things like solder joints and components in general. 150-160 F seems quite hot for storage. Not sure if it would damage things but it does increase the risk. Is there no option for storage with better temperature regulation?
In case there are laptops in your collection, dont use plastic bags as this may accelerate vinegar syndrome screen deterioration.
Aui wrote on 2024-02-04, 21:18:In case there are laptops in your collection, dont use plastic bags as this may accelerate vinegar syndrome screen deterioration.
what is vinegear syndrome????
It is a (rather complicated) chemical reaction, which can destroy old lcd screens, specifically the polarizing films. While these can be replaced, its one of the most daunting retro-repairs one can ever hope to accomplish (personal opinion), with the results often not really satisfying. Putting laptops in closed plastic bags may accelerate the process.
Store them similar to how they would have been boxed new.
If you think all these NIB machines that are found in long locked up warehouses that would have been similar conditions to what you described and usually come out ok.
You have the advantage of not having to worry about transport so can be bit less cautious about that side of the packaging.
chinny22 wrote on 2024-02-04, 23:07:Store them similar to how they would have been boxed new.
If you think all these NIB machines that are found in long locked up warehouses that would have been similar conditions to what you described and usually come out ok.
You have the advantage of not having to worry about transport so can be bit less cautious about that side of the packaging.
Sounds good. Like I said, just for sanity sake, I have removed all CR2032s. I know they should be able to handle the heat and cooling cycles but the batteries are so cheap. Anyway I can just buy more later when I can pull them all out of storage again.
I'm definitely going to grab some silica just because it does rain. Sometimes your taxes. But overall we are a dry climate. We're not known for rusty things.
And thanks everyone for the tips. I'm going to make sure these things stay super in. Good shape is best I can but it's a matter of necessity with the rising costs of everything that my savings are gone and I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck doing door dash outside of my normal job just so I can pay bills. So this is my way of saving up some money so I can put it down payment on a house. So sadly it means the computers will be in storage for a year or two.
Good luck! It wasn't the only reason but we were somewhat priced out of the UK and until we find somewhere we can call home the PC's I shipped over to Australia are in my sister's garage in the moving boxes they came over in, each has a bag of silica chucked in the case as just about everything comes with a bag these days.
Not ideal but boringly somethings are more important than old computers and end of it I'll still have the things even if it has a bit of rust here, scratch there just part of it's history/character.
...and always use thick cardboard boxes =)
chinny22 wrote on 2024-02-05, 05:36:Good luck! It wasn't the only reason but we were somewhat priced out of the UK and until we find somewhere we can call home the PC's I shipped over to Australia are in my sister's garage in the moving boxes they came over in, each has a bag of silica chucked in the case as just about everything comes with a bag these days.
Not ideal but boringly somethings are more important than old computers and end of it I'll still have the things even if it has a bit of rust here, scratch there just part of it's history/character.
yep, and I didn't give up old entirely, I did get myself a Latitude C610 with a Radeon Mobility and a P3-M 1ghz for 9x games and some DOS stuff that works in Windows, I also have an XPS M1710 with a Core2 Duo and 7900GS Mobile for XP, and I traded my Ryzen Desktop for a laptop with an i7 and RTX 3050 Mobile
