Seaside Corrosion

[klikster]

I just found a corroded USB port on a computer today and it reminded me of a nightmare scenario I experienced in the past. Maybe reading about it will help someone. It's mainly directed at people who live very near the sea and leave doors and windows open quite often.

I lived in a small bungalow less than 50 m from the beach and I liked leaving doors and windows open. I started having a series of problems that turned out to *usually* be my video board .. but I also lost a mainboard on one computer.

The way I think this happens .. air with some amount of salt vapor condenses at night and deposits on components, especially on horizontal boards. The spot corrodes and shorts out the board. I think it may happen in other high humidity situations, but salt air exasterbates the situation.

When I figured it out, I was sometimes able to *rescue* the board by spraying the board with contact cleaner and scrubbing gently with a soft toothbrush. I wasn't able to find the spot on my mainboard.

I think there might be a couple of ways to prevent the problem, one being "conformal coating" and the other being mineral oil (which is non-conductive). I moved from the location so I haven't tried either way. And I was not able to find any

conformal coating (paint on or spray on) here even though there are companies who do this in production.

Mineral oil is pretty common, but I don't know how long before it evaporated/degrades to the point of not being useful.

I was able to buy a large aresol can and a non-aresol container of contact cleaner at the BIG sales and repair shop on the 3rd floor (down toward the hotel end) of Fortune Town.

If you hear several of "beeps" (number and type varies depending on BIOS) when you boot your machine .. then get no screen ..

[sbk]

Ah yes, I know this problem well. I live on the beach as well. I have several older computers but, having replaced nearly everything on them more than once, they are no longer so old.

When something goes on one of my computers it is always a hardware failure. Mainboards have been replaced in both, and the RAM fails on a regular basis. We stopped turning them off at night (less condensation) but the power does go off from time to time and then they must be turned off.

Any ideas (except air conditioning) to reduce the number of hardware failures would be most appreciated

[Crossy]

I don't think I'd use mineral oil on a PCB, going to be rather sticky and attract all sorts of crap.

Amorn and other electronic component places sell a PCB lacquer that should protect from a mildly corrosive atmosphere, obviously you need to do this from new to avoid trapping the nasties under the lacquer.

Protect the connectors with masking tape when spraying and coat both sides of the board.

[Rice_King]

If you wanted to take drastic measures to prevent corrosion, you could build yourself a Mineral Oil Submerged Computer.

[Crossy]

If you wanted to take drastic measures to prevent corrosion, you could build yourself a Mineral Oil Submerged Computer.

This I like, just needs a few plastic fish to complete the illusion

[klikster]

Any ideas (except air conditioning) to reduce the number of hardware failures would be most appreciated

I do recommend that you get some contact cleaner for standby . . and maybe order some "conformal coating". What might be a good exercise after getting the coating ..

Strip down the machine, spray and scrub all PC boards with contact cleaner

Tape all contacts then spray with the coating

Reassemple and cross your fingers

This is jut 1 source:

http://www.masterbond.com/produse/produse_cc.html

[klikster]

I don't think I'd use mineral oil on a PCB, going to be rather sticky and attract all sorts of crap.

Amorn and other electronic component places sell a PCB lacquer that should protect from a mildly corrosive atmosphere, obviously you need to do this from new to avoid trapping the nasties under the lacquer.

Protect the connectors with masking tape when spraying and coat both sides of the board.

I'm not sure I would want to coat soldered in components with heat sinks. I always found my corrosion on the top side of my VGA cards.

Where is Amorn? I was all over Fortune town with a Thai friend to translate and no one knew what I was asking about.