Especially if it's purple in color 🤣 (the one isopropyl alcohol I got must've been for automotive purposes or something as it has a purple color)

PcBytes wrote on 2024-03-16, 22:18:

Especially if it's purple in color 🤣 (the one isopropyl alcohol I got must've been for automotive purposes or something as it has a purple color)

here they dye Methanol blue, ISO is clear like water same for Ethanol.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-17, 00:00:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-03-16, 22:18:

Especially if it's purple in color 🤣 (the one isopropyl alcohol I got must've been for automotive purposes or something as it has a purple color)

here they dye Methanol blue, ISO is clear like water same for Ethanol.

In France i think we cant buy medical 90° ethanol anymore. You still can buy medical 70° but there is something inside that induce vomiting in case you would drink it.

The alcohol I use for cleaning elecronics is "alcool à brûler" (Alcohol fuel). It's sometimes used in small portable stoves.
It's around 90% ethanol + 10% Methanol.
It's totally clear without any color added. But will makes you permanently blind... (and possibly dead) if you drink it...

I would be curious to know if e85 from the gas station works.

E85, that's a definite "Don't do this at home, do it at your buddy's house when his wife is out." thing... 🤣 ... But seriously, gloves and outdoors if you wanna try it, the gasoline part is still pretty horrible.

The UK cleaning solvent summary:

Methylated Spirits: bitter scent, purple. Same as denatured alcohol and acl's fuel. Everywhere.
Isopropanol: clear, smells like Vodka. Harder to find than you'd expect, but it's around.
High % Ethanol without poisons added: 🤣 funny joke aha.

E85 would be a bit scary for me in this use case. Petrol is pretty harsh.

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-03-17, 01:03:

The UK cleaning solvent summary: […]
Show full quote

The UK cleaning solvent summary:

Methylated Spirits: bitter scent, purple. Same as denatured alcohol and acl's fuel. Everywhere.
Isopropanol: clear, smells like Vodka. Harder to find than you'd expect, but it's around.
High % Ethanol without poisons added: 🤣 funny joke aha.

E85 would be a bit scary for me in this use case. Petrol is pretty harsh.

If you cant find high% ethanol without nasty additives just got buy some Everclear or any other high proof booze .. it'll work just as well, Methanol here is well the same as Methylated Spirits light blue in colour and will blind/kill you if you drink it, it also tastes like the devil shit in the mix.

High % Ethanol with no additives is available here for labs and industrial purposes but the general public cant just go buy it.

ISO is easily available here in high percentage mixes, 70% - 97% is the normal one but if you have a laboratory licence then you can get higher concentrations. Not sure why it would be harder to source in the UK than other places.

As for E85 ...uhh yeah Thats a hard pass, that shit strips paint off cars so will likely damage electronic stuff when it starts stripping plastics and conformal coatings it will also leave a slightly nasty residue over everything so the item will need further washing/cleaning.

But I guess if you have some stubborn nasty epoxy then it might work as a last resort.

As an added bonus. Everclear with concentrated apple juice is a great way to liven up a holiday party. Ask me how I know.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-17, 01:24:

If you cant find high% ethanol without nasty additives just got buy some Everclear or any other high proof booze ..

Like I said, funny joke haha. Strongest you find on the open market is under 70%, and would be stupid-expensive whiskies and absinthe. Closest thing to Everclear is a 62% white rum. As a result, I tend to use hand gel or surgical swabs since those are at least cheap and 70%.

High % Ethanol with no additives is available here for labs and industrial purposes but the general public cant just go buy it.
...
Not sure why it would be harder to source in the UK than other places.

Short answer, because the government's response to some high profile chemical attacks was to make it harder for the general public to buy chemicals. Peroxide: 3% max and only available from some pharmacies. IPA: Still available at high concentrations, but few shops stock it. Generally you can get stronger stuff if you're registered as a business, but a lot of it needs (bizarrely) an explosives licence. You can't even get Condy's Crystals any more, and I haven't seen a children's chemistry set on sale since 2009.

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-03-17, 09:50:

Like I said, funny joke haha. Strongest you find on the open market is under 70%, and would be stupid-expensive whiskies and abs […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-17, 01:24:

If you cant find high% ethanol without nasty additives just got buy some Everclear or any other high proof booze ..

Like I said, funny joke haha. Strongest you find on the open market is under 70%, and would be stupid-expensive whiskies and absinthe. Closest thing to Everclear is a 62% white rum. As a result, I tend to use hand gel or surgical swabs since those are at least cheap and 70%.

High % Ethanol with no additives is available here for labs and industrial purposes but the general public cant just go buy it.
...
Not sure why it would be harder to source in the UK than other places.

Short answer, because the government's response to some high profile chemical attacks was to make it harder for the general public to buy chemicals. Peroxide: 3% max and only available from some pharmacies. IPA: Still available at high concentrations, but few shops stock it. Generally you can get stronger stuff if you're registered as a business, but a lot of it needs (bizarrely) an explosives licence. You can't even get Condy's Crystals any more, and I haven't seen a children's chemistry set on sale since 2009.

Did the UK ban Everclear or just any high proof booze ? and 3% peroxide . .Jesus Im not sure what the limit is here but 3% is a fairly weak solution.

here I was thinking Australia was becoming a nanny state.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-17, 10:04:

Did the UK ban Everclear or just any high proof booze ? and 3% peroxide . .Jesus Im not sure what the limit is here but 3% is a fairly weak solution.

There may be higher % versions of both, but not readily available. I can find 6% "cream" peroxide from beauty ranges, but not just - peroxide water solution.

here I was thinking Australia was becoming a nanny state.

Can we park that? There's no way for me to respond without turning into a socialist antifa whackjob. Needless to say, I don't like our current government or how they regulate things. I'll leave it at that. 😁

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-17, 10:04:

Did the UK ban Everclear or just any high proof booze ?

I don't know, but I haven't seen absinthe anywhere for years.

I think there's some denture cleaning tablets which you can get a high strength peroxide solution with when dissolved in minimum amount of water, but then you have other stuff in with them which might mess up the properties desired.

debs3759 wrote on 2024-03-17, 14:47:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-17, 10:04:

Did the UK ban Everclear or just any high proof booze ?

I don't know, but I haven't seen absinthe anywhere for years.

Damn, if they don't sell it in the center of Gothdom then it is probably gone. (Bauhaus was from Northampton FYI for the confused) ... my thoughts about that are that it might have been some EU naming thing because back years ago even what was on sale as Absinthe was not the real deal as wormwood was banned, but was flavored with aniseed and substitutes, so real Absinthe has been gone a long time apart from what people snuck in from their vacations but the fake Absinthe might have been banned for not being real Absinthe.

Absinthe is still readily available in the UK? Admittedly not in Tesco, but most wine/spirit specialist shops will have some - usually La Fée and another. And the Wormwood thing is ... overblown. It's been legal in most of Europe since 1988, and in France since 2011. And you are allowed Wormwood, just within a certain limit. Here's a study contrasting vintage and modern wormwood concentrations: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf703568f.

Though TL;DR - there were some Absinthes historically that were 40-50mg/L Thujone, but most were around 25mg/L, well below the current limit of 35mg/L. All that's happened is the top and bottom ends of the bell curve have been cut off.

And I just found a website with Rodnik's 85% Spanish Absinthe (a personal favourite) in stock, so I guess I've found a higher upper bound. Though, I'm not spending £50 on a bottle of good Absinthe to clean a damn CPU.

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-03-17, 17:26:

Absinthe is still readily available in the UK? Admittedly not in Tesco, but most wine/spirit specialist shops will have some - usually La Fée and another. And the Wormwood thing is ... overblown. It's been legal in most of Europe since 1988, and in France since 2011. And you are allowed Wormwood, just within a certain limit. Here's a study contrasting vintage and modern wormwood concentrations: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf703568f.

Though TL;DR - there were some Absinthes historically that were 40-50mg/L Thujone, but most were around 25mg/L, well below the current limit of 35mg/L. All that's happened is the top and bottom ends of the bell curve have been cut off.

And I just found a website with Rodnik's 85% Spanish Absinthe (a personal favourite) in stock, so I guess I've found a higher upper bound. Though, I'm not spending £50 on a bottle of good Absinthe to clean a damn CPU.

Ooh, gonna have to google that one. I never saw more than 70% 😀 Sounds like a good moonshine 😀

Funny how a little off hand comment I made turned into a discussion of alcoholic drinks (-:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-03-17, 18:58:

Funny how a little off hand comment I made turned into a discussion of alcoholic drinks (-:

And regional terms for IPA... it's always been called "rubbing alcohol" round my parts.

Managed to find one of those old Commodore branded ATX cases when they had a go at selling gaming PCs (around 2007 I think). It's one of the Eve Online variants... I'll be using this for my socket 754 Win98/XP rig.

PowerPie5000 wrote on 2024-03-17, 20:12:

Managed to find one of those old Commodore branded ATX cases when they had a go at selling gaming PCs (around 2007 I think). It's one of the Eve Online variants... I'll be using this for my socket 754 Win98/XP rig.

Ah my uncle had (probably still has) aCommodore-branded 486! I have to ask him if I could have it if it's still around...I didn't know they "made" PCs later.

Pre-94 there were Commodore PCs by Commodore, in 96 or so there were a couple of Commodore branded ones by Escom, then there was a few popped up in noughts where they licensed name to 3rd party.