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    #1

    hairdryer on electronics

    Potential silly question for the community.

    I often use hot air to diagnose components, as they often revive/die with heat/cold. I use my hot air station and freeze spray.

    I was asked whether I could use a hairdryer to warm up PCBs. Obviously you won't have the ability to direct the heat to a specific component but what about ESD? Is it safe to use a hairdryer on an electronic board?

    Thanks!
    Tags: None
  • Answer selected by tony359 at 12-15-2023, 03:37 AM.
    It's like watering a garden with a fire hose. Possible, yes. A good way of doing it? Probably not.
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      #2
      never heard of it causing a problem .

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        #3
        Violent airflow through a plastic hose or nozzle or across a PCB will generate a static charge. It's miniscule- but not the case if it is charging up something big as a capacitor and there is no leakage path. Like a person.
        This was known a long time ago with techs vacuum cleaning or using compressed air to clean equipment, there were ESD-related failures. Then 3M came out with special vacs using dissipative plastics.

        If you don't touch (discharge) the nozzle/hose to yourself or the gear I think it's not a problem on an ESD mat, and stay grounded.

        You can also watch a multimeter DCV reading with air blowing across one probe in contact with large metal - PC board etc., other probe earth-grounded. As a primitive electrometer.

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          #4
          Personally I use both and never had any trouble. But then I don't use the hair dryer to fault find as such on a naked board. The nozzle is just to big to fault find anything with. I just use it to warm something up maybe or to get a PSU going in a pinch if the starter cap has failed.
          My Weller hot air is running circles around a hair dryer for fault finding.

          Comment

            #5
            Thank you!

            Yes, it's not the best way but I have been asked if I would recommend it for a wider audience, that might not have a hot air station. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to recommend bad things, that's all! The purpose of the hairdryer is just a quick a dirty way to see if the board starts working again when warmed up.

            Thank you all!

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              #6
              It's like watering a garden with a fire hose. Possible, yes. A good way of doing it? Probably not.
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                #7
                the Official Answer ... is YES...You Can and sometimes with a varable temp hairdryer you can find the temp issue faster Daniel.

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                  #8
                  The problem with a heat gun or hair dryer and with freeze spray is that it affects a large area. With freeze spray I soak the tip of a cotton swab with it and then touch the suspect component with the cotton swab tip. Doing something similar with a heat gun is a bit more difficult, and if your probe is metallic, you need to avoid shorting to something.
                  PeteS in CA

                  Power Supplies should be boring: No loud noises, no bright flashes, and no bad smells.
                  ****************************
                  To kill personal responsibility, initiative or success, punish it by taxing it. To encourage irresponsibility, improvidence, dependence and failure, reward it by subsidizing it.
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                    #9
                    I use the plastic tube of my air dust can (used upside down). With that I can precisely freeze one component if I gently press on the trigger and prevent splashing all around.

                    See my own video here: https://youtu.be/AL64ADVLlJc?t=740 (it should take you to where I freeze a tantalum cap).

                    Heat gun or hairdryer is difficult of course.

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