20 Nov
2009
20 Nov
'09
5:06 p.m.
On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Dave Taylor <ript at disasterarea.net> wrote:
Hi all,
First post here. Long story short, I recently rescued a friend of mine's
Commodore equipment after he'd suffered a fire in his apartment. None of
it caught on fire but some copped a direct hit from a fire hose and was
sitting there for 4 days while I went through the bureaucracy of gaining
access to the place (he's in hospital at the moment but will recover, for
the record).
While this gear isn't particularly uncommon (although the Amiga stuff
might be quite expensive to replace), I'd like to rescue it for him even
if it's just for morale purposes.
Anyway, rusty RF shields have leaked rusty water all over the PCBs and I
really don't know how to deal with it. So far, I've used dry cotton
buds/q-tips to clean off anything visible, but I'd like to know what
people recommend for cleaning the boards properly.
I was thinking isopropyl alcohol - I've previously used it for leaked
caps, but I'm all out right now. Is methylated spirits a bad
substitution?
Ug, sorry to hear that.
Someone makes alcohol-in-a-spray-can electronics cleaner. I bought it at
frys. It looks like those cans of compressed air with a wd-40 little red
straw. I cleaned up a motherboard that had yogurt on it (kids, don't ask).
Worked great. Just spray it on liberally and let it wash away anything on
there, then let it dry. No q-tips needed.
If you have a machine that can't be salvaged, at least save as many parts as
you can. For the amigas, the cases are worth something. You can still get
plenty of motherboards on ebay for not much compared to the cost of the
whole machine.
Speaking of leaked caps, it looks like the water has
caused a lot of caps
to leak as well - I've never seen leaking caps in the act, it's always
been dry "after the event" type damage. If there's anything worth noting
about this, that'd be great to know too.
Thanks for any advice!
Can water really make caps leak after only a few days?
Leaking caps means it's time for the soldering iron. I probably wouldn't
bother since motherboards are plentiful. The amiga forums (i'm on amiga.org)
are full of people who have replaced leaky caps on amiga motherboards.
They're full of good information.
One last thing... you need to remove any amiga barrel type battery you
find. If caps are leaking, the battery probably is too. The original 500
didn't have one, but the 500+ did. For the 500, I believe the battery is
inside the metal shielded trap door memory upgrade, same for the 600. The
big box amigas had them right on the motherboard. The 2000 is especially
notorious for leaking acid everywhere.
brian