2nd opinion on board

[godfree]

Hey all. Need a second opinion on a board issue one of my teammates has encountered.
We as a team recently stripped, relubed/greased, and cleaned all of our A1s. His in particular had a large ammount of paint all over the electronics, and the clear plastic that covers it. While it worked fine with the paint in place, after cleaning it (gently with a dry clean cloth) the OLED screen no longer functions properly. It will flicker and attempt to display for about the first 30 seconds before going black.
I told him he would have to replace it, but he is hoping that after drying out it will function properly again.
Anyone care to share an opinion on this?

[Mavrick]

Paint is a derivative of fish oil. It will act like oil because it is, this will cause dead shorting or intermittent. It takes a pretty good amount of warm water or scrubbing to get it off. My suggestion is to use Isopropyl alcohol and be very careful cleaning the board and connectors where the paint is. If you remove the board from the gun and disconnect power would be the best. Allow it to dry throughly!( a day in between these steps would be nice) Then reassemble and test.

Also, this goes for any electronics! If you drop your phone or other electronic device in water do not turn it on to test it! Get a glass and fill it with Isopropyl alcohol. Submerge the device in the alcohol. Leave there for 15 minutes to a half an hour. Remove and let it dry in open air for 3 days. Power it up. Most of the time it will work fine. If it powers with the charger only the battery is gone and will need to be replaced.

The reason for this is Isopropyl alcohol absorbs water in small amounts. This will "thin" out water droplets and allow the device to dry out naturally.

Good luck and let us know how you make out.

[Lithium406]

^^^^

That's the craziest best idea I've ever heard. So just submerge the board 100% in the rubbing alcohol? That's an amazing idea. I can't tell you how many phones I've lost due to water damage. I wish I would have known this before now!

[godfree]

Good tip on the board! Hasn't tested yet, still drying, by after soaking in the alcohol for 20 minutes or so it turned a little orange, same color of paint that was on the board. Crazy that he missed it, and some shell fragments too. Working great so far. Will dry it and test tomorrow.

[Lithium406]

I'm interested to see how it turns out. Keep us posted!!!

[pittbull01231]

Being an Electronics Tech I wouldnt dunk the board in the IPA for the simple reason if you dunk it in that long whatever conformal coating that was on the board can be removed from it. your best bet is to have him get a very soft brisle brush made of horse hair. you can normaly get some called acid brushes from a hardware store. Dip the brush in the IPA and clean off the board. Clean the connectors inside and out real good and clean off the other connectors on the wires and such. Also take a thin dry Paper type wipe and cleaning off the IPA as you go. Another good methood of doing this is to take the wipe and place it between the board and the brush to aborb the paint as you are cleaning. this way your dryin time wont be as long considering IPA evaporates in a very short time. I would only suggest dunking the board only if it was commpletely covered in paint and had been that way for a long while. If you do dunk the board I would get some spray on conformal coating and spray a thin layer on the board after it drys being carefull not to get it inside the connectors. The conformal coating is used to help protect the electronics from ESD and other debries. You can normally get it at Radio Shack. I would suggest using 100% IPA for this also. (IPA = isopropyl Alcohol)

[godfree]

Just fired up and tested the board today, working in perfect order again!!!
Thanks a lot for the advice! Soaking it in the alcohol fixed the screen issues, works flawlessly again. GREAT FIX!

[Mavrick]

Glad to hear it. This works on all electronic devices as I said. Although Pitbull has his opinion I have done electronics for many years now. I base this fix from my experience at the assembly level of board manufacture. If you knew the cleaning chemicals and the solvents they use to clean newly manufactured boards to get the flux and other crap off the Isopropyl alcohol is mild by comparison! Just be sure to pull batteries before you dunk them!!! Dead shorts to Li-po batteries will result in fires or worse!

[pittbull01231]

not that the dunking meathood dosent work! ive used it plenty of times at work. Just stating the fact he could strip what CC is on there off depending on what type it is and if he goes with that meathood to reaply it. Other then that the only other down side to the dunk is depending on what the board is made of itself can be weakend by the IPA. but that shouldnt be a worry in a Paintball Marker.