5 Mar
2014
5 Mar
'14
12:38 p.m.
On Mar 5, 2014, at 3:17 PM, Kyle Owen <kylevowen at gmail.com> wrote:
...
That leads to another perhaps relevant question: cleaning. I hear people
have successfully cleaned these in the kitchen sink. Is deionized or
distilled water preferred over tap water? Any tips on this? Non-powdered
latex gloves should be worn, I imagine? We can start a new thread on this
if one would prefer.
Any leftover crud would be fatal, so tap water is most definitely out because of the
dissolved salts it contains. Distilled water might possibly work.
The only time I have seen a pack cleaned by hand (as opposed to in a specialized cleaning
machine) was when our college IBM 1620 sprung a leak in the (hydraulic) head actuators of
the 1311 drive. The IBM tech replaced the faulty gasket, bled the hydraulics, and cleaned
heads and packs using Kimwipes soaked in reagent grade isopropyl alcohol I obtained for
him from the chemistry department stock room.
Isopropyl alcohol is a mild solvent and well suited for removing oily stuff. The key
point here was to use high purity stuff; drug store ?rubbing alcohol? would certainly not
be a good idea.
If the dirt you?re dealing with is soluble in water rather than in some alcohol, then
distilled water might be the right option. But I would make it distilled, preferably from
a chemical supply company, nothing less.
paul