Yes, we all know the two don't mix or, if they do it's fatal.
Last night I was milling a component for Simplex with the rotary table in a different place to usual and didn't notice that it was redirecting the suds over one of the scales. Of course it died.
Having nothing to loose I dismantled the electronic head, removed the pc board, wiped the suds off and blow dried it. It still didn't respond so I put some meths in the ultrasonic bath and gave it a couple of minutes. Another blow dry and lo and behold it works as good as new.
Surprising what can be saved after a good dousing. A few years ago I went to do a part on the big CNC in plastic and realised that it was part of a previous program I had done in steel some time before. Cleared around the vise, fitted the part, started the program and then immediately stopped it, jogged to where I wanted to be and pressed "Run from here" and buggered off into the other shop.
About 10 minutes into the program there was this loud bang, nay it was a ginormous bang, a flash like Nagasaki on a dark night , the noise of breaking glass and all the lights went out, I think in that order.
When I had recovered my senses and stopped muttering Oh golly gosh, deary me and words to this effect I went into the other shop to inspect what could have happened. First thing was broken glass from about 23,576,489 florryesent light tubes and 17 birds nests, all removed from the roof by 1,000's of small blue plastic 'objects' ?
On inspecting the CNC it was covered in coolant, searching for a broken coolant pipe it then dawned on Moi that I had knocked the coolant hose out the way as it was plastic and when it was cutting, being programmed for steel, it was aiming an arc of coolant over the top of the machine onto the 440 volt 3 ~ invertor at the back.
The 1,000's a small blue 'objects' were the remains of a big blue cover about 12" cube covering this 10 HP invertor, breath in.... breath out...shiitttteee
So £750 quid's worth [ at dealer discount ] of invertor had hit the deck. Nothing to loose, remove from machine shake 1/2 gallon of coolant from inside and stand it by the fire for the rest of the day.
Following day, refit to machine, replace all fuses and 23,576,489 light tubes [ sod the birds nests ] switch on and Voila, mucho revolution of the first water.
In an effort to conform to H&S a cardboard box was gaffer taped around the invertor, with air holes of course. Later when I was telling the IMO rep of this incident he asked if he could use the example, how could I stop him ? and even took a cover off a new invertor for me.
Surprising how robust some wiring and electronics are. A couple of years ago my Disco TD5 had a problem (not uncommon apparantly...) where oil wicks up through the wiring harness from around the injectors and completely fills up the ECU. The result was driving back to Suffolk from Bristol on 4 cylinders instead of 5. No problem at any speed on the motorway, but lumpy as anything at low revs.
As a new ECU was something in the same price region of John's invertor this wasn't an option to go for, so ECU was taken off, opened up, and flushed out with Isopropyl alcohol, dried out, then fittted back on.
Had to fit a new harness, but the Disco has run perfectly OK on the old ECU ever since.
Some years ago I used to teach elementary computing to beginners, mostly older people. Quite a lot of them were scared of the computer, and even of touching the keyboard.
I used to "accidently" spill coffee on a keyboard, them dunk it in the sink, "forgetting" to disconnect it. Leave to dry and it was fine.
Note, this does not work with any Apple keyboards, and some MS ones.
There are two things that fail when they get whet.
1.) The coupler board (small caps) changes its dielectric constant and signals reach more caps then wanted. The position gets lost and stupid numbers will be displayed.
2.) the conductive rubber from the PCB to the LCD gets oily and no signals will pass.
With the first cleaning, you removed problem #1, with the second one #2.
I had good experiences with a Al-tube 30 x 60 mm and a long slit through which the slider is moved.
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