Water damage

90% iso is fine. I used to service marine gear. During that time I's get one that had been dunked in the nastiest, saltwater. The procedure was know to those that did that kind of service. -First immerse in clean fresh water. -Open unit to fully expose -Then drain and repeat with fresh (not reused) water to get the salt out. -After several rinses a bath in any Isopropanol to kill any bugs that might have been in the water. That also means runoff or other sources of water. It's critically important to get out salts as many are hydroscopic even after drying. Generally for the last 30 years water and sometimes surfactants are the common material for cleaning freshly assembled boards. It's also safer and easiest to dispose of in a safe way. Bake in an oven at 180F (warm but not hot) to drive out all water. Replace any paper parts (speaker) or other items that may have been affected by water and lubricate as needed (shafts, switches, pots). If the unit hadn't been in the salt for more than a day full recovery was common. Longer than that and you get electrolysis and parts literally start falling off the boards. Water is ok to a point. It should never be allowed to sit as corrosion is the real problem. With boards and electronics that generally means electrolytic corrosion as you have dissimilar metals and often the water is not clean. Clean water is a poor conductor and less a problem so cleaning with water is least damaging is it's is distilled. Also distilled will not remain nonionic if the board is dirty, clean it first. I've cleaned cruddy PDP-8 and PDP11 boards in the dishwasher. I had a S100 crate that was so filthy I would never bring it in the house until it got hosed off and initially scrubbed outdoors then disassembled for a pass through a dish washer. Bake them dry and they look factory new and have never given problems. I recently got a ham transceiver that was owned by a smoker and stored in a dusty dirty garage and ran that through the dish washer (after removing the tubes, meters and fully opening it up) after drying and lubricating the tuning mechanism it looks nearly new save for scratches. When assembled and few known problems repaired before washing it worked as it should. This was a tube (valve) radio employing voltages like 150, 300 and 750 so any conductive path (including dirt) is going to be a real issue. Cleaning also cleared a few HV arcs that were caused by the greasy dust when first tested. NOTE: water is the least caustic and also the least damaging cleaning material. Many solvents will damage plastics including older IC encapsulents, plastic cased transistors as well as adhesives to name a few. Also water (and maybe some mild soap) will remove soot, dirt, dust, and possible fungal residues (molds). Some parts like power transformers are a pain to wash but if water has gotten to them then a rinse and thorough bake is always required. Water is not the problem but how to deal with all the other things that come with it or result from it laying in a puddle of dirty water. Allison Ben wrote: