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How to safely clean and shine your PCBs after using compressed air

Greetings,

I will be throwing all my parts into a brand new case with band new fans, sleeving the lot. I regularly dedust by carefully using compressed air on a lower PSI setting for all the general areas like the case, heatsinks, filters etc. However I can never get the PCB itself completely cleared of them fine sticky dust particles. I want everything to look like new when putting everything together. Are Q-Tips/Rubbing Alcohol a good idea? ESD wise? Brushes I can use? Coffee Filters? Throw them ideas out there. Thank you! 

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Tech yes city uses brake cleaner, but I wouldn't recommend it.

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I know that you tube channel tech yes city, he uses a can of brake part cleaner when I was watching a couple of his videos to clean a motherboard and GPU....sounds crazy so I don't wanna put any input into using it...just would never think that. Also how low of a PSI do you use? Sounds like your using an air compressor, which is what I would use instead of chucking money into compressed cans of air. 

 

 

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On 31.7.2016 at 11:19 PM, CommanderAlex said:

I know that you tube channel tech yes city, he uses a can of brake part cleaner when I was watching a couple of his videos to clean a motherboard and GPU....sounds crazy so I don't wanna put any input into using it...just would never think that. Also how low of a PSI do you use? Sounds like your using an air compressor, which is what I would use instead of chucking money into compressed cans of air. 

 

 

 

On 31.7.2016 at 11:20 PM, GoldenBE said:

Just found this: isopropyl alcohol seems to be harmless to electronics and a pretty good cleaner.

 

 

 

Most break cleaners, are usally isopropyl alcohol based, btw. 

 

 

Some Tipps ....

 

When cleaning do it outside, far away from any ignition sources (this is obvious I guess) isopropyl alcohol fumes can be ignited by ESD, too btw

 

Remove as many plastic or rubber parts from your components you want to clean (you can wash them by hand with water),  they may degrade otherwise, paint could flake of, just remove what you can wash with water. (Maybe make sure that the water isn't to calcareous, it may leave ugly chalk stains, wich can be pain to clean on aluminum fins for example)

 

Huge amounts of more or less any alcohol fumes will make you a bit dazed or are even harmfull, at least on a long term use it when you have to. But not for everything.

 

I recomand wearing gloves, your hands will thank me ;D

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