is it safe to use hot glue on components?

[GreezyJeezy]

so i have an idea i want to do and im wounder to make it easier i could just hot glue my motherboard on to the thing i need it on, can i do this? it can it damage the motherboard. 

 

a laptop motherboard not a desktop 

[W-L]

1 minute ago, GreezyJeezy said:

so i have an idea i want to do and im wounder to make it easier i could just hot glue my motherboard on to the thing i need it on, can i do this? it can it damage the motherboard.

a laptop motherboard not a desktop 

Probably best not to do that, you can get standoff's and put them into place fairly easily not to mention give it some clearance to the tray or back surface. 

[MeDownYou]

Depends on where you are hot gluing, some places will be fine with hot glue others will create heat problems or have more sensitive components

[GreezyJeezy]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

Probably best not to do that, you can get standoff's and put them into place fairly easily not to mention give it some clearance to the tray or back surface. 

i have standoffs but im mounting it on the side of a plastic wall and well the thing is plastic wall is thick so i  thought hot gluing is easier than trying to cut through it, i have no power tools at my disposal right now  

[GreezyJeezy]

2 minutes ago, MeDownYou said:

Depends on where you are hot gluing, some places will be fine with hot glue others will create heat problems or have more sensitive components

what if i use the hot glue gun on low heat and use it when it very firsts mets so its not super hot yet but just hot enough to melt the glue and then ill unplug it and wait for it to cool down and repeat as needed  

[W-L]

3 minutes ago, GreezyJeezy said:

i have standoffs but im mounting it on the side of a plastic wall and well the thing is plastic wall is thick so i  thought hot gluing is easier than trying to cut through it, i have no power tools at my disposal right now  

As long as you have a way of drilling and screwing in the standoff's it would work, only thing I would be worried about is it not holding well enough if it's on a vertical surface or wall. 

[soup]

Hot glue is often used to stop components vibrating (ordinary soldering holding it electrically)so iIcan't see problems there. 

What you will have to watch for is the insulating properties of hot glue causing components to retain any generated heat.

Also stand offs are used not only to fix the MoBo but to seperate the tails (conductive)  and the traces from the rear of the board from touching and possibly conducting against the MoBo tray .

  So whilst there is no immedate problems with hot glue (as long as the caveats are allowed for) that I can see; I would still hesitate to use it, and go the route of proper holes drilled into a proper backboard.

 

I see in one of the replies above you state "I have no power tools" well around a dozen or so holes with a hand drill is not such a big task.  How about clerance holes and put a little nut on the back of the standoff (tapping plastic can be problematic).

[GreezyJeezy]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

As long as you have a way of drilling and screwing in the standoff's it would work, only thing I would be worried about is it not holding well enough if it's on a vertical surface or wall. 

its the wall of the items im putting it in but yes it will be vertical, i dont want to say much becase if it work out ill post a log of it

[GreezyJeezy]

2 minutes ago, soup said:

Hot glue is often used to stop components vibrating (ordinary soldering holding it electrically)so iIcan't see problems there. 

What you will have to watch for is the insulating properties of hot glue causing components to retain any generated heat.

Also stand offs are used not only to fix the MoBo but to seperate the tails (conductive)  and the traces from the rear of the board from touching and possibly conducting against the MoBo tray .

  So whilst there is no immedate problems with hot glue (as long as the caveats are allowed for) that I can see; I would still hesitate to use it, and go the route of proper holes drilled into a proper backboard.

so use it as a last resort if i cant get holes drilled 

[MeDownYou]

4 minutes ago, GreezyJeezy said:

what if i use the hot glue gun on low heat and use it when it very firsts mets so its not super hot yet but just hot enough to melt the glue and then ill unplug it and wait for it to cool down and repeat as needed  

Generally you should be okay, if you stay away from cluster centers and main heat sources of your board, I plan to hot glue my arcade buttons to contacts on a controller when they arrive to route them into my cabinet i'm making for example, so don't worry about traces just about thermals and smt components.

[GreezyJeezy]

1 minute ago, MeDownYou said:

Generally you should be okay, if you stay away from cluster centers and main heat sources of your board, I plan to hot glue my arcade buttons to contacts on a controller when they arrive to route them into my cabinet i'm making for example, so don't worry about traces just about thermals and smt components.

Alright I was worried about it I tripping traces some how, but it does make since to not go over any real computer like resisters or anything because of the glue insalating it 

[soup]

12 hours ago, GreezyJeezy said:

Alright I was worried about it I tripping traces some how, but it does make since to not go over any real computer like resisters or anything because of the glue insalating it 

The other thing you will need to be aware of is that the MoBo can't be removed (easily) so if you want to update the board or run an added wire behind it you can't, gluing any electrical componet down is not a rash decision.

  As I said I have only ever seen glue on the component side stopping something vibrating (not always used think coil whine) never seen it used to hold down a magor set of components .

   So only use glue as a VERY last resort and accept the fact that you are not going to be able to fix/change it.

Edit to add :-

Not really au fait with hot glue but seems it can be removed with IPA (as this is used on circuit boards all the time I don't think it can be damaging)

Note that in this video the components are glued together using a thin glue layer no idea if this would still work if you use the glue to make any sort of fillet

Good luck let us know how you got on.