any recommended vacuum cleaner for PCB boards?

[cloonypan]

Hello,

To maintenance electrical panels, we're planning to clean dust which layed on electrical components. Is there any dedicated(special) vacuum cleaner for electrical boards/cards? If there was no dedicated tool for electrical devices, would you please introduce one which is easy for this work?

When cleaning PCB boards, anything I shall espacially noticed?

Thank you all.

 

[itsmoked]

I know of none. I also know that vacuuming is barely useful. You can also easily damage things by banging into them with the nozzle.

I prefer to blow them off outside while wearing a respirator, ear protection, and eye protection.

I've never seen a CD or DVD drive survive a high pressure blow off.

If you decide to blow them off stay down around 40psi and touch nothing with the nozzle. Stay back a ways.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Skogsgurra]

It depends somewhat on application and environment.

There are special vacuum cleaners for circuit bords. They come with nozzles in non-conductive, but anti-ESD material and sometimes with brushes that help lifting dirt from the boards.

If there are thick layers of dirt, it is a good idea to remove that. Especially if high voltages are involved.

Preventive maintenance may not be a good idea in some cases. There is a very real risk that potentiometer settings, DIP switches and jumpers are changed during the process. That can lead to costly and hard to find problems.

Another risk is that boards get mixed up. That is especially risky in plants with many similar groups of equipment and can lead to very confusing problems with lots of 'interesting' phenomena - including high heat, smoke and flames.

Still another risk is that some board connectors are made to withstand a very low number of matings. There are DIN connectors (the 41612 for instance) where the lowest grade can take around 50 matings. Over the years, and with intense preventive maintenance, the reliability will get very low.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...

 

[jonathn1]

I learned the hard way not to vacuum electronics. The air itself passing over the circuits can cause enough static to create issues. So no Vacuum on the market can stop that. In our computer shop we learned to place a vacuum on one side and static free air from a can blowing in its direction. It does help keep the dirt down in the space. Now If I am blowing off electronics i take it outside and use static free air to do it and a small anti static brush to loosen up the tough problems. I did see a really nice hood vent system installed once. Had enough air pulling that as the mother boards are cleand with canned air it goes up into the hood and out of the space. Its only on when necessary and the whole computer could sit under it to do the fans and ppower supplies. But no so much air as to cause static.

 

[cloonypan]

Thanks for reply
I will think about the suggestions above.
especially the un-necessary maintanence work.

 

[WoodrowJWeen]

Remins me of the system vacuuming instructions in the manual that came with my Gateway computer some years ago. "Don't loosen anything in the process - sucking all the chips off the board with an iundustrial strength wet/dry vac is not covered by the warranty!"

 

[cloonypan]

Hello,

I found one dust removal made by CRC company. Picture is shown below.

http://files.engineering.com/getfil...3-8fe6-721801eb87c4&file=CRC_dust_removal.jpg

The original weblink is:

http://www.crcindustries.com/ei/content/prod_detail.aspx?PN=14085

How is it?
Thank you.