Because this subject has been discussed so many times and there is so much
interest, I thought I'd bring Paul Larona, KB6MIP who worked for HP and cleaned
and repaired equipment.
You can read his comments below, to correct my comments the soap wasn't Simple
Green but Zoom.
From: Paul Lorona [mailto:boomer...@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 08:35 AM
To: John Hudson
Subject: Re: FW: [Drakelist] Baked Drakes
Hi Johnny -
I wonder who this person reminiscing was? I clearly remember doing exactly
what was described, except for the distilled water part. I recall using plain
old tap water. That was back between 1983 and 1993 for me, at the new HP
Fullerton office on Manhattan Avenue, just northeast of what was back then
Griswolds Hotel. The old HP building is now the Albertsons / SavOn Corporate
HQ, I think.
Our wash rack at HP Fullerton was nothing more elaborate than an enclosed
area maybe 4'W x 3'D x 4'H, with hot and cold water taps and a spigot / hose
assembly at one end. It had a turntable in it, and as I recall we had some sort
of heavy duty de-greaser we called Zoom in a 55 gallon drum with a hand pump
that we used.
The wash rack also had two heating units. One was a simple oven that had a
rather crude thermostat that held the temperature within somewhere between 150
and 180 degrees F. This is where we dried the stuff we washed. The other was an
environmental chamber, which was basically a much better insulated and sealed
oven with humidity control and a much better temperature setting and regulating
method. We used the chamber to heat run equipment while powered up, to see if
things would fail in hot environments. I want to think the chamber ran a bit
cooler ... somewhere between 100 and 120 degrees F to stress test operating
equipment.
And yeah ... things with transformers of high-voltage power systems usually
got baked for at least a weekend, usually a week if the customer wasn't in a
hurry.
I couldn't even guess how many pieces of electronic equipment I ran through
the wash rack and oven ... dozens, maybe hundreds. Customers would send us
stuff that was horrible ... rat nests, dust and crud so thick you couldn't see
individual components on the circuit boards, CRTs that were dim to the point of
being useless for the crud built up between the glass and the transparent
protective covers ... and it would all go back looking sparkling and almost new.
Somewhere in my pile of HP memorabilia I think I have a letter from a
customer thanking me for resurrecting an old logic analyzer by cleaning it
up. I washed logic analyzers, data generators, oscilloscopes, DC power systems,
RF generators, spectrum analyzers ... all kinds of stuff. And after hours I was
known to wash the off the odd MICOR or MASTR II as well winks.
Those were good times.
Thanks for the memory poke. That was fun.
Paul
I thought you'd get a kick out of this string of comments..
-Original Message-
From: Ed Tanton [mailto:n...@comcast.net]
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 5:34 AM
To: John Hudson; anc...@ec.rr.commailto:anc...@ec.rr.com;
w1es1...@earthlink.netmailto:w1es1...@earthlink.net
Cc: captc...@flash.netmailto:captc...@flash.net;
drakelist@zerobeat.netmailto:drakelist@zerobeat.net
Subject: RE: [Drakelist] Baked Drakes
...and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the key reason for the transformers
being OK, related to the distilled water!!! Surely that says something about
other, non-hermetic components as well.
Ed Tanton
website: http://www.n4xy.com
All emails IN OUT checked by
Norton AntiVirus with AutoProtect
--
Wag more / Bark less
--
-Original Message-
From: drakelist-boun...@zerobeat.netmailto:drakelist-boun...@zerobeat.net
[mailto:drakelist-boun...@zerobeat.net] On Behalf Of John Hudson
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 3:15 PM
To: anc...@ec.rr.commailto:anc...@ec.rr.com;
w1es1...@earthlink.netmailto:w1es1...@earthlink.net
Cc: captc...@flash.netmailto:captc...@flash.net;
drakelist@zerobeat.netmailto:drakelist@zerobeat.net
Subject: Re: [Drakelist] Baked Drakes
As we all know this has been a hot topic many times on the list. One of my good
friends worked at HP Fullerton cleaning, repairing, and aligning test
equipment. The process was, as described prior, blowing out dust, removing
whose items that water would damage, using a solution of simple green under
pressure washer, scrubbing with brush as needed, then rinsing with distilled
water, air hose, and baking at heat under 200 degrees for a week. He said
transformers were not a problem for this process.
It would be awesome to find photo's or documentation of this process and placed
in our document files.
///snip
--
==
Paul J. Lorona
El Coyote Mas Grande y Viejo
boomer...@sbcglobal.netmailto:boomer...@sbcglobal.net
