[time-nuts] LCD display connector

Robert Darlington rdarlington at gmail.com
Tue Jan 4 19:44:21 UTC 2011


Denatured alcohol is available at Home Depot in the States and most hardware
stores.

Also, what you say about the 50/50 mix of isopro and water is exactly why I
tend to reach for the 70% stuff first.  It dissolves the bulk of the gunk
including the stuff not soluble in alcohol but that is soluble in water.  I
then sometimes follow up with a 90% or higher rinse (or switch to acetone
for a final drying).

-Bob

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 11:07 AM, David Martindale <dave.martindale at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Active Electronics is another source of 99.9% pure isopropanol, and
> they have walk-in stores in a bunch of major US and Canadian cities.
> I use it for most electronics cleaning, but it also cleans optics
> without leaving a residue (unless there's a lot of junk on the surface
> to dissolve and redistribute).  Pharmacies also sell 99% isopropanol,
> but it's more expensive than buying a litre from Active.  For cleaning
> optics, I often prefer a 50/50 mix of isopropanol and distilled water,
> since it evaporates more slowly and sometimes there is glop that
> dissolves more easily in water than isopropanol.
>
> Where I live (British Columbia, Canada), "everclear" (high-proof
> drinkable ethanol) does not seem to be available at all.  As far as I
> can tell it's legal, but the government-run liquor stores don't carry
> it.  To get it, I'd have to go to neighbour province Alberta, or
> neighbour state Washington.  Makes no sense to me.
>
> Worse, even *denatured* ethanol is hard to find.  It's legal, but
> almost unavailable.  In the USA, "alcohol stove fuel" or "marine stove
> fuel" is often ethanol denatured with methanol, but in Canada it
> always seems to be pure methanol - perhaps because methanol is cheaper
> here.  (Not necessarily a good deal though, since methanol gives only
> ~60% of the heat of combustion compared to the same volume of
> ethanol).  Lee Valley sells ethanol denatured with isobutyl alcohol
> for use as shellac solvent, but it's relatively expensive.  All other
> shellac solvent I've found in hardware stores is methanol.
>
> (I haven't tested them, but I wouldn't really expect stuff sold as
> "stove fuel" or "shellac solvent" to be clean enough for optics).
>
>     Dave
>
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