22 Jun
2016
22 Jun
'16
8:42 a.m.
On Wed, 22 Jun 2016, william degnan wrote:
I picked up a DEC VR201 display today, it was leaking
a highly corrosive
brown liquid. So corrosive it burned my skin painfully / immediately
and I had to wash hands thoroughly.
PH test it, if you can. If it's caustic, then I'd suspect condensate mixed
with electrolytic capacitor gunk. If it's acidic, I'd suspect either an
industrial cleaner or again condensate that had mixed with acid from
solder flux, then partially evaporated, leaving a concentrated acid ready
to burn you. That's my cockamamie theory.
If it tests acidic, put on some gloves and eye protection and pull the
boards out you can, leaving just the (discharged) tube and the case. Then
flush everything with a mix of water and baking soda. If it's caustic,
clean it out with vinegar (ie.. 3% diluted acetic acid). Then flush the
whole thing with purified water, clean the boards, and reassemble it. It
might be a lost cause if that stuff has got down into the flyback
transformer or ate all the solder mask off your logic board.
-Swift