[VHFcontesting] water damage

[George Sintchak/WA2VNV]

John, Sorry to hear about your flood.

Re: water damage. Back some years ago, at BNL, I/we used to wash electronic 
equipment, specifically tektronix scopes(tube types & solid state & others) 
in a vented hood with mild detergent/degreaser (Zep) diluted ~10:1 sprayed 
on the guts & exterior followed by a hot water complete rinse. Then put the 
item an a warm ~125 def F oven with an air exhaust to dry for ~24 hrs.

They would come out like brand new. Just avoid over wetting meter faces, 
anything paper (old capacitor tube covers), inked legends on front, and into 
transformer windings. Otherwise the key was to do a clean hot water wash to 
remove any conductive gunk and get it in the vented oven to dry. The key is 
to try to get the stuff washed before corossion sets in - time is the 
killer.
The military was so impressed with the process, that there was an added spec 
the make equipment washable. Thus, we eventually saw the electrolytic caps 
(and other parts) in equipment covered with plastic tube insulator covers 
instead of paper.

I can't claim any credit for the proceedure - it goes to Frank Rizzo, W2OCM, 
now an Silent Key for developing the method. When I first saw it done, I 
thought he was crazy, but the results were amazing. Especially the really 
dusty inside of equipment would be put through the wash cycle before even 
fixing/calibrating the unit, and in many cases it got "fixed" by removing 
the dirt. Also, nice to work on clean equipment. So, after the insurance co, 
sees your damage, try the wash method to salvage some of what you want to 
try to save, you have nothing to lose.

George, WA2VNV

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John D'Ausilio" <jdausilio at gmail.com>
To: <VHFcontesting at contesting.com>; "qrp-l at qth.net" <qrp-l at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 8:45 AM
Subject: [VHFcontesting] water damage


We experienced a flood Thursday night here in southwestern CT ..
almost 3 feet of water in the basement by the time it stopped rising.
Unfortunately, just about all of my electronics stuff ended up
submerged.

I'm assuming I'm going to end up tossing much stuff into the dumpster.
All of the nice heliax jumpers and other cable assemblies, most of my
junkbox, computers, test equipment. I'm curious as to whether others
on the list have had the flooding experience, and what they found they
were able to rehabilitate. I really don't want to toss the General
Microwave power meter ..

de w1rt/john
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