Altair Turnkey and some DEC stuff cheap

[Paul Koning]

> On Apr 9, 2015, at 12:45 PM, Maciej W. Rozycki <macro at linux-mips.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 9 Apr 2015, Jay West wrote:
> 
>> I wash/scrub heavily "soiled" boards with soap and water, but then douse
>> them very very liberally with denatured alcohol. Denatured alcohol has the
>> property of getting into every tiny nook and crevice and forcing the water
>> out - so nothing potentially corrosive can be left behind to oxidize, etc.
> 
> Isn't isopropanol more suited for that as being highly hygroscopic it 
> sucks in water naturally before evaporating and taking it away with 
> itself?  It's used professionally for cleaning PCBs in production too.

Ethanol does the same.  I’m not sure why isopropanol would be more popular for this use in industrial settings.  Perhaps because some plastics tolerate it better?  (Plexiglas doesn’t like ethanol, though it’s unusual in that respect.)

The classic organic chemistry lab procedure for cleaning/drying stuff is: (1) rinse with water, (2) rinse with ethanol, (3) rinse with ether.  Step 2 takes away the water; step 3 takes away the ethanol.  

	paul