Deoxit

[Prairie Dawg]

Oh original Blue Shower was great, then they started adding the $1.50 per can fed tax, before they outlawed the stuff completely. I bought a couple cases of BLue Shower just before it disapeared too. I have a teensy bit in one can in the corner of the bench left.

99% isopropyl alcohol is great stuff too, but I just buy it at the local pharmacy. A pint of it is $1.59. Geez, 11 years ago the same pint as only $1.17. Of course I am not cleaning engines, just tape heads and such.

I usually use isopropyl on a Qtip to wipe soot off circuit boards after components flame out.

Was Blue Shower R-12 freon? That's what's in my can of Channel Master tuner bath "Like an ultrasonic cleaner in a can!" so it says.

Back when I worked in K'zoo we had a mechanic everyone called Mr. Clean because he never got dirty. So he was working on a Citation and had used isopropyl to degrease the nose wheel well and some other busker plugged in the aux power plug.

KaWHOOF! Of course the residual vapor burned off with no damage but it was a seriously odd moment.

It's best to red tag stuff.

The isopropyl is seriously hygroscopic as are all alcohols of that type, which is why they make really good gas line deicer. They'll suck entrained water right out of gas or diesel fuel. Isopropyl is good for drying out air lines and air brakes on heavy trucks in winter time too.

I get mine in the red bottle at O'Reilly auto parts that says Heet Iso.

[jrfrond]

Hygroscopic cleaners are a real issue if you want to clean a live circuit board. Can't do it with any of the new stuff. It's just one of the reasons I installed a compressor and air lines in the shop, just so we could have a solid 90psi to blow things dry. Also to save money on canned duster, which is just SO darn expensive now, plus the cans ice up with extended use. Once you get used to a solid 90psi, it's tough to use anything else.

[Enzo]

Just don;t get close enough you have to go looking for that disc cap that went flying off the board and across the room.

We used to buy BLue Shower, excellent cleaner and solvent, but we also bought spray cans of pure freon. There were times you wanted to clean something without solvents, like rubber keyboard contacts, which would absorb solvents into the rubber. Tape heads. I believe the BLue Shower propellant was freon, but there were other solvents in the formulation.

Blue Shower II, or Blue Shower Junior, or whatever the hell it was called was worthless.

When I have to clean up a pc board with a drink spill or something, usually cat-related fluids, warm water and maybe a little dish soap works well, but then you do have that water wicking under the ICs problem. Shop air is good, but in its absence, some 99% isoprop does a pretty good job of collecting most of it. Then that evaporates quick on its own.

In college - too many decades ago now to think about - I spent some time working in a microbiology lab. yes, the proverbial test tube washer. That's me. I had to wash all the glassware. We had a fancy dishwasher that cleanerd thing, and then we ran its cycles with distilled water. Then we chased off the water with alcohol. And lastly to chase away any residual alcohol, we used ether.

Ether, it's not just for tonsilectomies any more.

And not to mention the glassware we had to sterilize in the autoclave (giant pressure cooker).

Speaking of alcohol, ethanol in particular, it is Friday, and the beer store is open another hour. I think I may treat myself to a frosty cold Budweiser.

Later, guys...