What are your thoughts on cleaning TV boards with 91% isopropyl alcohol?

[tucocaps]

I recently got a working LG plasma (static noise from speakers), with a broken screen. Being a rough scrap pickup, the boards inside had a really nasty coating of some sort of black soot. For some reason , the soot seemed worse on the brown colored PCB's than it was on the green ones.

Did some research , and decided to submerge the boards after removal in a pan of the alcohol. Then, I scrubbed with a soft bristle brush. Was not even able to get but about half the soot off, and have them drying now.

People say that the alcohol will soon evaporate, and should have no ill effect on circuit boards. However, I was having some second thoughts thinking about particular parts like POTs, I/O ports, etc. Is it possible the alcohol could get into a particular component, fail to evaporate, and cause some sort of problems later? Thanks for any ideas!

[tw2005]

Re: What are your thoughts on cleaning TV boards with 91% isopropyl alcohol?

I recently got a working LG plasma (static noise from speakers), with a broken screen. Being a rough scrap pickup, the boards inside had a really nasty coating of some sort of black soot. For some reason , the soot seemed worse on the brown colored PCB's than it was on the green ones.

Did some research , and decided to submerge the boards after removal in a pan of the alcohol. Then, I scrubbed with a soft bristle brush. Was not even able to get but about half the soot off, and have them drying now.

People say that the alcohol will soon evaporate, and should have no ill effect on circuit boards. However, I was having some second thoughts thinking about particular parts like POTs, I/O ports, etc. Is it possible the alcohol could get into a particular component, fail to evaporate, and cause some sort of problems later? Thanks for any ideas!

I'd use a soft bristle brush to get most of the dust off. Drowning, not sure espsecially with transformers if any. I have recently drowned a Sustain board from a Panasonic not in a bath but pretty liberal. It was working but after I did this mysteriously it faulted. Took me a while to nut it out but I had a 16 FET driver Ic which I replaced on a hunch and fixed it again. Found there was conductance on some pins there shouldn't.

When I inspected the chip underneath there was a lot of residue and I suspect somehow a lot of the gunk and dirt was flushed to there and collected becoming conductive.

I suspect that was my doing when I washed it with alcohol, it dried and created this problem so just something to consider

[tucocaps]

Re: What are your thoughts on cleaning TV boards with 91% isopropyl alcohol?

I'd use a soft bristle brush to get most of the dust off. Drowning, not sure espsecially with transformers if any. I have recently drowned a Sustain board from a Panasonic not in a bath but pretty liberal. It was working but after I did this mysteriously it faulted. Took me a while to nut it out but I had a 16 FET driver Ic which I replaced on a hunch and fixed it again. Found there was conductance on some pins there shouldn't.

When I inspected the chip underneath there was a lot of residue and I suspect somehow a lot of the gunk and dirt was flushed to there and collected becoming conductive.

I suspect that was my doing when I washed it with alcohol, it dried and created this problem so just something to consider

Thanks TW!

I still have the chassis for the set on the table. As it was so filthy , I didn't want to deal with remounting the boards, but maybe I should to make sure things at least appear to be working.

Usually when I rip the boards out, I don't pay much attention to the panel connections. Theoretically, would the set still power on the same if I just hooked up the boards again, and left all ribbon connection to panel open? Since most of the screws were kinda rusty, i'd probably just want to tack them down with a few per board.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: What are your thoughts on cleaning TV boards with 91% isopropyl alcohol?

98% IPA is better if you want to submerge a whole board. I once put a whole computer mainboard in 98% iso, POWERED ON. The board had a water spill and the line for the power switch was shorted, because of this the board was continuously powering on and then off.

I brushed at it till it stayed on. Then it worked beautifully and still does to this day.