How to wash and dry a dirty console motherboard

[bacteria]

When game consoles get old and treated badly, the boards can get very mucky indeed, and when the muck also gets into the game port, games probably won't load reliably anymore.

This video shows how to wash and dry a console motherboard.

The video shows a very dirty Sega Master System console board, before, after and after a quick A/V mod (more on that later).

The principles are the same for any console system; open system up, remove board, wash, leave to dry, re-assemble.

http://i50.tinypic.com/35cftdw.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7W_k6P9b9k)

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I once had to clean an Atari 2600 board because there were dead roaches inside.

[Archimboldi]

I once had to clean an Atari 2600 board because there were dead roaches inside.

had the same thing happen with a slim PS2. Really, really gross stuff. I think they had a nest in there because it was covered in roach filth and parts.

[bacteria]

Surprising the roaches didn't cause a short, eg decomposition

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Surprising the roaches didn't cause a short, eg decomposition

I think they did cause a short because the 2600 didn't work until I cleaned the remains out. There were no signs of any permanent damage though. I had bought the system used at a flea market.

[Purkeynator]

I about had a heart attack when I saw him just dunk the board in a bucket of soapy water. I can't believe it still worked. This brings up a good point. My grandpa got mad at my brother and I for playing Gameboy instead of working and he threw my Gameboy in a lunch pail full of water. It never worked again even though the power was not on at the time. I wonder why this never worked again but the master system was fine....

We did wait for a long time for it to dry before trying it but maybe it wasn't long enough.

[jb143]

If you immediately took the batteries out and took it apart to let it dry off completely (and probally washed off any residue) then there would have been a good chance it could have worked.

I've mentioned it before, but where I work, the production department routinely washes circuit boards off in a regular household dishwasher to remove solder flux. There's no power to the boards, they let them dry fully, and they don't use dishsoap of course, so there's no harm to them at all.

The whole electronics and water thing is somewhat of a myth...or at least overstated/missunderstood by the general public. The main issue is electrical power going somewhere it's not supposed to, using water as a conduit. If there's no power then there's typically no worries.

[blue lander]

I once cleaned an old Pong clone circuit board with Coca Cola and a q-tip. It worked, although it did leave a sticky residue. If coke can clean corrosion off a circuit board, it makes you wonder what it can do to your teeth...

[bacteria]

Ah, however the thing is that Cola is a liquid and passes over your teeth fast and your mouth cleans fast (saliva), what causes the harm to teeth is food and sugars that stick to your teeth for a while thereby causing decay!

[Moose]

Stupid question: What kind of soap did you use?

[bacteria]

Washing up liquid you use for dishes! (Fairy Liquid).

[Ed Oscuro]

Immersing electrical components in liquid willy-nilly is a bad idea, especially if anything's socketed or can otherwise keep water where you can't dry or blow it out.

That being said, I often carefully wash down arcade PCBs, doing my best not to get water on paper labels or inside sockets or components which aren't watertight...easy and even without detergent, waterspots aren't much of a problem. Those PCBs aren't usually dirty enough to require cleaning, but I wouldn't doubt it prevents the occasional short.

[jb143]

Immersing electrical components in liquid willy-nilly is a bad idea, especially if anything's socketed or can otherwise keep water where you can't dry or blow it out.

The key is to make sure it fully dries and lot leave standing water inside anything. With the gameboy mentioned before, taking it apart and letting it dry would have probally saved it since you could make sure all the water was out. Otherwise what water remained could have corroded/rusted various parts.

On the circuit board level it's much easier to clean because you can make sure there's no water left where it doesn't belong. Yes, willy-nilly is a bad idea but if you're carefull to let everythind dry you can even use a dishwaher like I mentioned earlier.

[aaron7]

Use rubbing alcohol. You can dunk the board in and scrub it. Blow off what you can and let it air dry.

Do not, EVER EVER EVER use water!

[bacteria]

Is rubbing alcohol expensive? recommendations?

Water is free, and works. May not be for the purists, but if it works, no problem! As mentioned in other posts, remove fans, and other mechanical components with moving parts before washing the board. If the thermal paste gets damaged, scrape it off and apply new thermal paste - probably better anyway as it will perform better than old stuff thats been on the board for the last 10 or 20 years.

Back in the mid '80's I did something stupid, spilt water onto my old Intellivision console, turned system on (I said it was stupid) system dead of course. If only I had opened the console and left the board to dry, would have been ok!

[aaron7]

Rubbing alcohol is 80c at the grocery store...

Do NOT ever use water unless you want to render your electronics trash.

Water dries WAY slower than alcohol and can sit under components (IC's, capacitors, etc) for weeks before it dries out. This will corrode your connections and fry the board if you put power to it.

Alcohol dries in a few hours.

[jb143]

Use rubbing alcohol. You can dunk the board in and scrub it. Blow off what you can and let it air dry.

Do not, EVER EVER EVER use water!

As someone who works in the electronics industry and has a degree in electrical/computer engineering, all I can say is please re-read my previous posts.

In general though, cleaning a circuit board with alcohol and something like an old toothbrush would probally be best. I wouldn't dunk it in as that would be a waste. Just use what you need. Using water cleaning methods for the filthiest boards is completely fine as long as you let it completely dry.

My point though, is that the whole water+electronics thing is something that's missunderstood by most of the general population.

[understatement]

I agree that submerging a board like this is a bad idea. The problem is the reset and power buttons getting liquid in a place where it can’t get proper air circulation thus prolonging evaporation, then you run a chance of causing rust or residues that can stop the buttons from working.

You will get the same results with running tap water and a tooth brush, you will have no chance of residues from the soap and you will have control of where the water can go.

[aaron7]

And apparently misunderstood by you as well.

Both I and my parents have worked in the electronics industry for many, many years. Both parents since the 70's. Everyone knows never to use water to clean anything electronic. Sure, technically water doesn't hurt it but only when used correctly.

Unless he's using extremely filtered water there are plenty of impurities in that water that can corrode the board and components. Not to mention my previous point that it takes forever to dry unless he's using compressed air or a heated drying oven.

Why is this even being debated? Rubbing alcohol costs the same as water and is the obvious choice. Just use it!

[jb143]

There are tons of things that "everybody knows" that simply aren't true. Yes, alcohol is the better option in most cases, and we use it all this time at work. But we also use water to clean off water soluble flux after the wave soldering process. That's what it's designed to be cleaned off with, because it won't hurt the electronics. Granted, most people here aren't washing off solder flux, but that doesn't change the facts.

[understatement]

But we also use water to clean off water soluble flux after the wave soldering process. That's what it's designed to be cleaned off with, because it won't hurt the electronics. Granted, most people here aren't washing off solder flux, but that doesn't change the facts.

Wouldn’t that be distilled water and not tap water though? There is a big difference between the two.

I can see aaron7’s point, but I found that alcohol didn’t remove some things as well as water did.

[jb143]

We just use tap from regular household dishwashers. Unless maybe it's really hard tap water, there shouldn't be a problem.

This is from Hakko (http://www.hakkousa.com/AHPDirect/download/tn/TN00000030.pdf)...producer of soldering equipment. The washing of course is done after the board is populated with electronics and soldered...

Water-soluble fluxes.
These fluxes are designed to wash away from the board and components with plain, ordinary water...Water-soluble fluxes are usually washed off with hot water...

The thing with distilled water, or pure water, is that you could theoretically toss a toaster or a radio in a bathtub full and it would continue to work with nothing bad happening(other than soggy toast). Water by itself is non-conductive. It's the impurities that cause it to be conductive. Of course no one should try this because the toater it'self would add impurities and completely pure water is hard to come by anyways.

I remember a Mythbusters episode where they dropped a hair dryer in a bathtub and it continued to operate acting like a pump.

[Ed Oscuro]

Come to think of it, this reminds me a lot of a conversation we had over at Shmups.

Alcohol seems like a waste of time; you can't really rinse something under it, but you can use the abrasive quality of water's surface tension and volume to wash things away. A clean toothbrush helps too (I would use one of the free ones you get at the dentist, I wouldn't use one that's been in a mouth and been covered with toothpaste for ages if I could help it).

Washing under a stream of water is fine as long as you dry it off - pure water is better (I use the 'softened' water out of my tap, it still leaves the board better than it was originally). I don't know why you'd just dunk and scrub; a stream of water is less likely to damage something than your brush.

If you don't move any water or brush over the surface, all it'll do is make oils and junk float all over the place, settling into parts of the board that they weren't covering before. It might look cleaner but now everything will be covered with a thin film of crud.

You can't dry water out of the inside of some components, but most capacitors and the like seem water sealed with plastic.

Definitely make sure you're blowing a stream of water under any 80s-90s surface-mounted IC, like RAM, video or sound chips, or the main CPU. A little trail of water will rush out from underneath any component that got wet if you're doing it right.

A good blow dryer takes care of most problems and won't heat the board too much. It only takes five to ten minutes at the most to dry off your board, though I leave it lying about an extra day or two to be safe.

[understatement]

The thing with distilled water, or pure water, is that you could theoretically toss a toaster or a radio in a bathtub full and it would continue to work with nothing bad happening(other than soggy toast). Water by itself is non-conductive. It's the impurities that cause it to be conductive. Of course no one should try this because the toater it'self would add impurities and completely pure water is hard to come by anyways.

That's what I was getting at, most of the bigger companies use distilled water for that reason. But yea, for the everyday joe I don’t think tap water is going to mess up anything (unless you get it under buttons like I said before)

[Sosage]

Come to think of it, this reminds me a lot of a conversation we had over at Shmups.

This topic seems to come up everywhere. :P I know it use to come up all the time in RGVAC, where cleaning boards ops treated like shit is a serious issue (and I've bought some truly repugnant ass shit from stank, dank warehouses compared to console game stuff).

What I've gained from this conversation in the past is that, when it comes to getting into the details of the procedure there is no "correct way" of doing this. Use a dishwasher? Use a special water? Use only q-tips? Don't use soap? Wax on wax off scrubbing technique? No one ever agrees on these things.

As for myself, I use a technique very similar to the OP's. Only difference is I pop off any chips that are not soldered on. It is one less place for water to sit underneath during the drying process...map out the placement on a piece of paper first btw...I did a Double Dragon board and lost my map, which turned into a headache.

The most important thing is to MAKE SURE THE BOARD IS COMPLETELY DRY

Be willing to wait two weeks if necessary. It'll be a bunch of work down the drain (HAH!) if you turn it on and it is still wet somewhere.

What *I* always wondered about, and that I would like the electronics experts to bang heads over, is the long term damage issue. Specifically, we don't clean contacts on NES carts with water because, holy shit, they rust. How is this not a concern with these boards? It has to be somewhat of an issue with the Jamma male connection on the board or in this case, the pins?

[bacteria]

I just use a pencil eraser to remove the gunk off game cart traces to make them ok again - shines the traces up nicely as it rubs off the filth.

The board I used was rusted as you may have noticed, the grounding which was removed (steel) had rust over it, and corroded the side grounding strips on the motherboard. After washing, the board looks pretty good now, far better than it did (and works).

Interesting debate!

[Icarus Moonsight]

I'll continue to use alcohol. It's just safer for me to use. I give myself a good jolt once a year or so (last time was when I grabbed a spark plug cable that got loose from it's clip-housing while the engine was on... the wire briefly made contact with the exhaust manifold, exposing the core. Guess which part I grabbed? LOL ). Imagine what I could do to a board... Bad mojo man.