Apologies to those who might see this on more than one group or list and apologies again if it's old news to everyone but me, but I did think it important enough to share. I've just retrieved a pair of ICs that have been dry stored as spares in a component storage rack since 1979, a long time I know but probably not unusual for those of us using and maintaining older equipment. These, as I thought anyway, were correctly stored with the pins pressed into black anti-static foam, the usual stuff that's been used for this purpose for years. Unfortunately the foam has broken down into a sticky crumble and the plating on the IC pins is quite badly corroded, probably to the point where they won't take solder. A metal canned crystal lying against the foam has also corroded at the pont of contact. I've seen this stuff turn into a gooey mess inside some instrument cases but hadn't previously even thought about the same thing happening where it's used used for component storage. I've checked other trays and whilst not too many used this stuff but where they did there's evidence of similar problems. I've even got a later large component rack, all ok so far but for how long?, where it was fitted from new to every drawer:-( That's all, just offered as a word of warning to anyone else with components similarly stored. regards Nigel GM8PZR
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