Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

[The_Assimilator]

First post so be gentle.

Just got my hands on a dead Zalman ZM-460B APS and opened it up to find 2 blown C(r)apXons and a couple more that look very dodgy. (Zalman's website claims "Use of gold-plated terminals", I would've preferred to see use of quality caps!)

So I want to recap this PSU, but the problem is that whoever built it went apeshit with the hot glue and that's making it difficult for me to find my way around in there (I can't even see the tops of some of the caps because of the glue!). Is there any simple/safe way to remove hot glue that's congealed? I'm currently using a sharp knife to cut it out, but I'm worried I might slip and nick the PCB or one of the wires or components.

If there isn't a way to get rid of this gunk easily, how do the regular "recappers" around here go about removing it?

TIA!

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

No magic remover I know of.
Is not always glue, sometimes it's silicon sealer.
It's mostly cut, pick, pry, pull and peel.
.
Wire cutters can sometimes help reduce the size of big chunks.
Serrated knife if you need to saw.
Mirco screw drivers can get into small places.
Regular screw driver if you need to pry.
A hooked pick if you need to pull.
.
If you come up with any new 4 letter words please post them.
.

[Scenic]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

Most Zalman PSU's I've seen were Fortron Source (FSP) OEM. The fact that you mention CrapXons makes it almost certain..

The white gunk they use gets rock-hard after some time.. you can usually pry/pull it off with needle nose pliers if it's on top of the caps or in between. The caps are bad anyways, so a dent in them won't hurt lol

If you go and recap it, don't forget about the 5VSb caps. There's also a tiny 25V 100uF cap right against the center heatsink (in between the transformers) that most people overlook. That's usually the first cap to go bad as 5VSb is on all the time and it's yet another CrapXon..

edit: attached a pic of the 25V 100uF cap location. The cap itself is tiny and usually doesn't look bad at first. This PSU is a be-quiet! E5-400, which is also fortron source OEM. It also has this white gunk all over the place, but not that much. I've seen the same PSU series with this white crap just oozing out everywhere -.-

[klkmalik]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

This glue applying result to shock and vibration purpos,

[Krankshaft]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

Grab it with a pair of pliers and pull, slice it off carefully with a knife, or pry it off with a screwdriver.

Either way you look at it that stuff is a pain to remove.

[Scenic]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

^ yep. Massive painus in the anus. And whatever the stuff is FSP used on these, it's too hard to cut it most of the time. Sometimes it just cracks apart instead of being semi-flexible

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

This glue applying result to shock and vibration purpos,

No, it is primarily used to hold everything together before it is soldered.
.
Sometimes they use it to keep things from touching.
- Like keeping those doughnut shaped transformers/coils from contacting a heatsink or cap.
But that only takes a small dab and it's not the main thing it's used for.
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Removing hot (well... cold now) glue

When it's really hard or brittle sometimes squeezing the snot out of it several times in in several places [with whatever pliers you can get in there will] will cause it to crack and shatter or break off in chunks.
.