Sudden death of the HP 239X terminals by whiskering

Ed Sharpe couryhouse at aol.com
Wed Jun 6 12:18:21 CDT 2018


Probably best  to  do this  clean up on the chassis  before applying power to prevent  whiskers  from  conducting to   easy to destroy components?
 
thanks  for the heads up...
 
ed#
www.smecc.org 
 
In a message dated 6/6/2018 3:41:29 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctech at classiccmp.org writes:

 


Inspecting a newly acquired HP 2392A I found out the chassis was prone to
whiskering all over the chassis.

Whiskers are small metal hairs growing from pure metal (zinc or tin) and can
when they connect to a power line create a shortage and electric arc
damaging the electronics.

Made some pictures and placed them in:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/41897770664/in/dateposted-public/



It's best to remove them by using scotch brite or fine sanding paper, after
that paint or coat the chassis with a clear paint or other nonconducting
paint.

More info about whiskering can be found at:

https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_%28metallurgy%29





-Rik





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