Electronics related... don't laugh... please

[mavericknet]

So, my parent's dog is getting a little old, and they're away on a month long vacation. Between my brother, my sister-in-law, my fiancee, and me we have to take care of them. Yesterday I was stuck at work, I had taken my fiancee's keys and my brother was working out-of-town. Soooooo. I get home three hours after the dog was supposed to be walked and:


The old dog pissed into my project computer , yes, not on it, not near it, but into it. He managed to get it right into the power supply (luckily it was off) and the little bugger must have downed and entire bowl of water to fill the power supply and put a sixteenth of an inch of standing urine in the base of the case. Now I'm left with a small problem, this was the machine I had built to be my asterisk server (most of my mini-NOC is still assembled in a spare room at my parent's house because there isn't room in my one-room closet of an apartment).

To the point. I have an IBM Intelistation with dried urine in the powersupply, on the mother board, on the Digium Wildcard .... what's the best method by which to remove the dried urine from the circuit boards?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Wowbagger]

With the machine unplugged, flush everything you care about with LOTS of warm distilled water. Make sure it is DISTILLED, not just filtered.

However, I would say this - in my experience the biggest hassle in setting up a server is the software, not the hardware - could you not just junk the power supply and case (and possibly even the motherboard), and just move the hard drives over?

Hell - were it me, I'd junk everything but the disks, clean the disks up just enough to DD everything off them, then junk them too. To me, the cost of a server being unreliable is far greater than the cost of the hardware.

[kcbooboo]

A major component of liquid waste is ammonia. This is not nearly as caustic as even the weakest acid, so other than the sloshing around and aroma, it probably hasn't really hurt much.

As mentioned, remove anything that can be unplugged: memory, CPU, etc. Take the power supply apart. Pull everything out of the case. Wash everything with regular water, forcefully, and rinse with distilled water at the end. You could even pour some alcohol into things to help get rid of anything that has solidified. Use a toothbrush to get down deep. The fan probably is OK unless it was submerged or directly in the stream. It can be rebuilt but it's probably cheaper to buy a new one. Shake all the pieces and dry off as much as you can with paper towels, then let everything completely dry up for 24 hours before you reassemble and turn it on.

Depending on how much time (money) you want to spend on it, you shouldn't have to replace anything (other than the dog).

Bob M.

[kf4sqb]

And my wife can't figure out why I don't want a dog, esspecially one in the house.

A major component of liquid waste is ammonia. This is not nearly as caustic as even the weakest acid, so other than the sloshing around and aroma, it probably hasn't really hurt much.

Bob, I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that one. Ammonia is very corrosive. Ever notice that the steel partitions between stalls in a public restroom rust pretty quickly? That's from the ammonia. It's even bad enough it will discolor/stain stainless steel. I've seen some electronics that were stored close to a chicken house for a few years. Not in it, just close. It wasn't pretty. Anyway, he will still most likely be OK if he gets it cleaned up quickly. If you let it sit more than a couple of days, look for problems down the road.

[kb0nly]

After launching the dog out a window... lol

I've dealt with many many many drenched computers and keyboards over the years of servicing them. And thus far everyone has given some solid advice! Not much else i can add.

The last time i had a computer with a problem of this nature it was from a young child leaving a small sipper cup laying on its side on top of the computer, they are good but not perfect which i know from experience with my kids, and it slowly dripped on to the top of the case and ran down the side where it entered a fan opening. Luckily everything was off. The bottom edge of the motherboard got a little wet from the puddle that accumulated in the bottom. I just used hot soapy water and a tooth brush to get it cleaned out, then i flushed with distilled water and used a can of compressed air to blow most of it out from underneath stuff and then let the whole works sit near a heat vent and dry. If it was the summer time i would have put it in the sun for a while. Either way, take your time and just give it ample time to dry.

With distilled water you won't actually short anything out. I have seen a demonstration with an entire computer motherboard running submerged in distilled water. The distilled water is devoid of the minerals and other conductive substances that make it short stuff out. This company submerged a motherboard for cooling, it was neat, the fans were left on and they were flowing water around in this tank.

Ammonia is corrosive, but unlike other things it takes a lot longer time to affect anything. Get it cleaned up and you should be ok.

[kcbooboo]

I never said it wasn't corrosive. But it takes a lot longer for it to affect the metals used in computers. It's probably better at stripping paint than actually eating metal. If it was still sloshing around in the computer when it was found, I'm sure it will just rinse away.

Also, coming from a mammal, there's a lot more water in the mix. Birds etc., almost drop a paste as opposed to a flowing liquid, making the concentration a lot higher in the chicken coop.

Bob M.

[kb0nly]

I would rather have a dog pee in the computer than a chicken.. lol

Plus i would have to worry about bird flu then... LOL

[kb8ukl]

Tuner cleaner would be my choice, its safe for all the components and it dries quickly.

[kb0nly]

You have to be careful with those types of cleaners though. Some of them aren't friendly with the plastics used in computers.

[kcbooboo]

Some tuner/contact cleaners leave a silicone lubricant on the material. There are cleaning solutions that have more alcohol and other solvents in them that evaporate completely. This is probably the kind you want to use. If it says "contact cleaner/wash" it's probably OK; if it mentions silicone or lubricant, you probably don't want to spray it all over the computer.

Test it first to make sure it won't attack the plastic. Some will eat up sockets and ruin things.

Bob M.

[AEC]

After years in the electronic instrument building/testing 'scene', I can safely tell you to rip it all apart, remove all the pieces and flush all parts with distilled water, then place those parts, boards and drives on as many cookie sheets as possible, and place them in your OVEN at the LOWEST temperature for at least ONE HOUR to fully dessicate the water contamination but NOT burn, melt or damage any parts.

We used to use this method of drying after we trim the leads, then WASH several main boards in the DISHWASHER, cleaning with special dissolving soap/driers to dissolve the stand-offs and solder fluxes that remain even after the wave soldering process.

I still use this same technique to clean drenched cellphones after a phone turns into a submarine.

Never a single failure due to using an oven to fully dry anything, radios, computers and cellphones included.

[bellersley]

Yep. A friend of mine does PCB design and that's exactly what they do - blast it into a dish washer to get rid of all the crap that's left on the board. I had a phone go for a swim in a bowl of soup (don't ask). I opened it up, drenced it with distilled water and let it sit in the sun. The only thing that didn't work afterwards was the microphone. Then I call my cell provider and they send me a brand new one in the mail...

[440roadrunner]

Run it through the dishwasher

Dry in the sun or a low oven