Comment by Workaccount2 2 days ago
You are better off soaking the wet electronics in isopropyl alcohol then trying to dry them in a bag full of desiccant.
One of the things that kills wet electronics is the dried residue that is left behind, creating shorts. Alcohol will wash away the water and leave no residue after it dries.
If the device has ink or glue you'd like to try to preserve, deionized water will mostly work too.
Yeah, I've had the same issue; as far as I can tell it's not actually the LCD itself but the backlight and the diffuser that end up getting screwed up. If you're trying to save electronics, keep the isopropanol away from the screen.
"You are better off soaking the wet electronics in isopropyl alcohol."
Where I am ethanol (EtOH-95%, H2O-5%) is much cheaper and much more readily available and works almost as well. If silica gel is not available, then a fan works well followed by a warm (not hot) oven baking. Make sure the alcohol has essentially all evaporated first.
Keep in mind that some components can be affected by both EtOH and propan-2-ol — component markings, coil doping resins can dissolve, etc. Both alcohols are also good at removing solder flux resins/residues. (Oh for the days when freon and freon mixtures were available, component damage never happened.)
Devices with power transformers pose special problems, best to dry with alcohol first (hoping enamel coatings on wire aren't softened), then bake in oven on warm heat for a long while, sometimes 24 hours or more is necessary. With transformers it's important that this is done as soon as possible after wetting.
Edit: as I'm reminded by nyanpasu64 keep both alcohols away from LCD screens (likely all screens). I had a netbook PC and put it in a carry bag with a bottle of EtOH and it leaked. The PC still worked but the screen suffered the same outcome.
That may be country specific, but at least where I live, ethanol is much more expensive than isopropyl alcohol (30€/l vs 10€/l) - mostly because of dues on ethanol.
Right, if you live where duty is applied to ethanol then it's expensive. In Australia, where I am ethanol is available as a denatured product. That is, it includes a very small amount (much less than 1%) of denatonium (aka Bitrex) which renders it undrinkable (it's the bitterest substance known). As such, excise tax is not levied.
Here, one liter bottles of denatured ethanol are available in every supermarket everywhere, and up to 20 liters available in hardware stores (at bulk rates it's even cheaper).
For comparison, here denatured ethanol costs about $5/l [in US dollars] versus isopropyl at between $25 and $30/l.
In the United States, if you buy "Denatured Alcohol" at a big box store, it will be a toxic brew of often 50-60% methanol as well as smaller amounts of MEK, MIBK, and even acetone in addition to the ethanol. However, you can order "Specially Denatured Alcohol (SDA)" from various chemical suppliers or even Amazon. "SDA 40B 200" will be 99.5% ethanol with 0.1% tert-butyl alcohol and 0.0005% denatonium benzoate. It's what I use for camp stove fuel since I refuse to carry methanol in my pack with food.
At my work any electronics that have had a water bath or flux-added rework will get an ultrasonic alcohol bath and then a forced air drying run. Alcohol is just so damned good for so much.
I'd be very scared of IPA in an ultrasonic cleaner. Sounds like a recipe for a fire. Or is your machine perhaps designed for safe IPA cleaning?
A few companies do make ultrasonic cleaners that are designed for flammable solvents, but they aren't common.
The easiest option is to just fill a plastic food bag with solvent, throw your part in, seal it with a clip and float it in your ultrasonic bath. The bag contains the vapour for safety, and it's easy to switch between different solvents and solutions.
That is next generation sous vide. Just controlling temperature is ho-hum. Getting it to just the right ultrasonic vibration to "cross-modulate the adipose frequency" is next level.
And someone is already doing it:
https://besservacuum.com/en/ultrasonic-food-treatment-machin...
Typically not (though some have heaters you can apply) but they atomize the fluid pretty well. The tiniest spark (static electricity) and some bad luck and you have the lid shooting into the roof and then a fire. As with everything, if you know what you are doing, go ahead.
The machine doesn't get hotter than 50C. IPA isnt igniting at that temp.
99%. 70% if I'm doing parts disinfection for medical devices.
One time I tried drying a water-soaked smartphone in alcohol, but the alcohol got under the LCD screen and made it look blotchy permanently. The phone still worked but I stopped using it.