Timely reminder - Fan Heaters, check for hot running and clean.

[PeterC]

It's also a bit difficult to keep in the right place, mainly due to lack of a third hand. I might have some trouble in finding a pump with a connector and the push-on type is a bit limited.

[TheOldFellow]

Well, thanks for this and the resulting thread.

I have a 3Kw fan heater that I am currently using while the CH zone to my renovation-end-of-the-house is valved off. The fan needed to be left for a few minutes to get up to speed before the heat was applied, otherwise the fan didn't have the 'guts' to stop the element glowing.

10 mins with vac and brush, 2 drops of oil, good as new!

R.

[Cicero]

=================================================

I don't use a connector, so no third hand needed.

Cic.

[Tim W]

TheOldFellow wibbled on Tuesday 29 December 2009 15:22

To be honest, it's not always that obvious. I just happened to be down low one evening and glanced in the grill. Couldn't see it standing up.

I was a little dismayed that when I picked one up and put it down with a bump, a spark flew out the front - a bit of fluff detached and lit whilst passing the element then blew out the front. That's the way to start a fire(!).

Can't for the life of me think why the designers would think it a good idea to put an intake on the base - it's either going to suck crap in, or get blocked when people place it on a shaggy rug (which some people will do).

I take it you didn't need to dremel various tools to get the security screw out then ;->

Jolly good - didn't expect a little thing to attract so much interest (and flaming) :)

[Harry Bloomfield]

Jules wrote on 29/12/2009 :

Which exactly what I have done for many years, but two things to be aware of - don't wash hard disks not keyboards. Hard disks have breathers which can let the water inside and many keyboards are membrane types which can trap water under the membrane.

[Jules]

Yes, last time I washed a hard disk PCB, I took the PCB off. That was an old ST506/412 drive, so easy to do - it's probably too fiddly on a modern drive (if possible; they might solder connections to the heads straight to the PCB these days).

Most keyboards simply don't wash well, membranes or not - I've found that completely dismantling and cleaning individual parts as required is normally the best way. Thankfully it doesn't take long to pull keycaps and the case shell on this 'ere Model M and give everything a good clean; the wife's machine has some modern Logitech Sponge-O-Matic thing that doesn't look like it'll come apart easily (but then as it's modern junk it'll probably break long before it needs a clean ;-)

cheers

Jules

[Bob Eager]

Yep, I have two Model Ms to clean this week. They have both been in daily use since 1992, and cleaned every few years....!

[geoff]

In message , Harry Bloomfield writes

keyboards are one of the few thing which I would wash, but I would completely dismantle it first (making sure I have a second one nearby to make sure all the keys go back where they came from

[geoff]

What the hell are people bothering cleaning a mbd with soapy water?

Really, just blowing off the worst of the dust is all that's required, the rest is doing no harm as long as long as you keep fans and heatsinks clean

more is just courting trouble

[Owain]

Just photocopy or photograph the keyboard before dismantling.

(or learn to touchtype!)

Owain

[geoff]

Ah - but its the peripheral keys

buggered if I'm going to learn to touch type just to get the keys back in the right order

having a second kbd to hand - no worries, simples

[Jules]

OK OK... admittedly I wouldn't bother with a PC motherboard - I normally just use a paintbrush / toothbrush and a vacuum close by to collect whatever's brushed off. But I've restored a *lot* of vintage "non-PC" systems and those I do tend to wash - and see no reason why it wouldn't work for generic PC stuff too.

Most of the problem with PCs seems to be that they're "designed" with little thought to airflow and have little filtering, so they suck in whatever crap they can and often put it right where it's least needed.

[Harry Bloomfield]

geoff explained :

I was referring to cleaning much more up market electronics than PC's, especially so before attempting any repairs on said electronics. Most people would be more than a little wary of dunking electronics in water, but no harm comes - providing there is nothing which absorbs the water or where moisture can become trapped.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bob Eager saying something like:

1994 I got this one and it was attached to an old 286 machine that came out of a typesetter's shop. Gawd knows how many characters it's actually typed.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Owain saying something like:

If it's so disgustingly grungy you can't even read the letters or numbers, much good that is.

(or learn to touchtype!)

Ah, I knew there was a reason for that.

[Bob Eager]

If it's a Model M, it should have the manufacture date on the bottom...!

[Frank Erskine]

Is there _anything_ more upmarket than PCs?

|-;)

[dennis]

There is plenty of stuff that is more over priced than PCs. I keep getting junk mail from bose and that is seriously over priced.

I used to work with kit that had 20 inch square cards that cost about $1m each, they were all washed with water. It was best to make sure the lasers were dry as they could suffer a steam explosion (or worse) if there was water in the way.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bob Eager saying something like:

12/6/1989 made in UK, so probably a Greenock one. I have another that's slightly newer but is missing any ID.

[Jules]

Mine's a late 1986, before they started putting status LEDs on them. I kind-of miss having a caps-lock LED sometimes, but I've not poked around in the guts yet to see if there's any possibility of adding one (I'm not sure if the lack is because they hadn't thought of providing them yet, or if there was some aesthetic* reason)

• maybe the ashtray was supposed to live in that spot on my model :-)

Oh, mine has a right-hand shift key that sometimes sticks - never have worked out why (there's no obvious wear or problems in the mechanism). Some silicone spray helped a lot, but it still sometimes binds if I tap it quite far out toward the right-hand edge (fine in the middle or left-hand edge). Other than that it's pretty much bomb-proof, though...

cheers

Jules