A good reason for an all house RCD.

[The Natural Philosopher]

SWMBO put a beautiful vase of dahlias on the window sill in the office, opened the windows wide, and left the room..

an hour later the house tripped..ah. The bowl of dahlias was lying in th laser printer, now empty of water..and had dripped onto a server keyboard as well. Curtains. wind and vases dont mix it seems.

Surprsingly enough the keyboard AND printer after a days draining and drying stil work..but would the printer have survived with power on and full of water?

I am happy that I did have a full house RCD.

[John Rumm]

a UPS can render them a non factor with IT kit though...

[Dave]

A few years ago on another news group, a poster was advised to put his keyboard under the shower for a few minutes and leave it somewhere warm fo a week to dry out. I dabble in computers for those that don't have a lot of money to spare and I did this with a keyboard that had a full mug of milky, sweetened coffee poured into it. After a week of drying it worked fine for several years.

Another occasion where a bit of water resolved a problem was when my wife came home from Scout camp with a waterlogged digital camera. She had fallen into a stream and the camera was in the pocket on the side of her jacket. The batteries were new, but the camera always rejected them as flat. So what I did was kill or cure. I dropped it into an ultrasonic bath filled with water and a single drop of Fairy washing up liquid. After spend quite some time in the bath with its lens extended and turned every way which up, it now works fine and resides at the side of my computer ready to use :-)

[Dave Liquorice]

Yep, it's not clean water that does the damage but things in the water like sugar or salt. If something gets dunked it's best to remove any batteries ASAP then if you can't get it under running clean water reasonably quickly seal it up, wet, in a plastic bag so the gunk doesn't dry on in tiny internal recesses. As soon as you can rinse it under cold running cold water with as many bits taken off as possible, give it a good shake in many directions and blot of any visible water. Then leave it somewhere warm to dry naturally for a day or three before trying to use it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

we've lost two macintosh keyboars to cat piss. No amount of washing works - chip inputs blown.

The typical PC lkeyboard generally comes back though.

thast a good one!

We have te same issues with model seaplanes..people willland them wrong way up in the sea and so on. The above generally works unless power components have gone!

[dennis]

Good advice and obvious if you know most electronic equipment is cleaned using water when its being made. Leaving the power on is the biggest killer when electronics is wet.

I suggest you rinse it with de-ionised water after the tap water as tap water may not be clean enough for some low power stuff.

[Dave]

I have recently found out that de-ionised water is not as clean as we think it is. I have an Epson printer and they are notorious for getting blocked jets, so I went on the hunt for distilled water to push through the jets from an old cartridge. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any. I ended up at my local chemist and described what I wanted it for and said that it must have no impurities and he said that he would order some in for me. When I went to pick it up, he told me that he had come up with something better. It is a pure water that is used to mix with powdered injection drugs and is totally devoid of particles.

Dave

[meow2222]

I thought 'water for injections' wasnt pure water, but pH balanced.

Water washing of mains equipment is standard practice in some industry sectors. The main gotchas are:

- some components arent water compatible, primarily relays

- drying times should be several times as long as when things appear to be totally dry, water trapped in microscopic crevices can't be seen but takes much longer to dry.

- closed containers should be opened to enable drying

As small kids we were told water and electricity dont mix for good reason, but that doesnt mean its accurate or even true. Electrode heating is standard industrial practice. Its often seen in domestic situations as well, though not regs compliant.

NT

[dennis]

It is just distilled water. You can use that, but its hard to find these days. Just make sure its not saline by mistake.

[geoff]

What, no Higgs bosons ?

[Dave]

No, my stipulation was that there had to be no particles in it. Saline? I can't see that being a problem, pushing it through epson jet nozzles.

Dave

[Dave]

I am not sure, but I will ask next time I pass our chemist, which might be in the morning.

Dave

[Dave Liquorice]

Normal Saline is water plus sodium chloride (salt) 0.9% w/v. I wouldn't like to say what what that such a solution could do to tiny parts.

Water for injection has very low particulate content and is either produced by distillation or 2 stage reverse osmosis.

[Derek]

Thus demonstrating very clearly the superiority of the PC over the Mac. ;-)

My young daughter fell into a chemiculated swimming pool with her game boy and that was the end of it. Despite immediate removal of batteries and prolonged soaking in clean water.

Derek

[Andrew Gabriel]

There's a guy who used to come to local computer fairs, selling old office PC's. He washed all the keyboards and mice in his dishwasher, and left them to dry for a couple of weeks. Very rarely had a dud one when he then tested them. (Don't know if he used dishwasher detergent.) I bought a nice Dell one off him for a couple of quid once, and it's still working (although not used much now).