Hot take: stop using compressed air to clean circuit boards

Saw a guy at my bench last week blast a 2010 MacBook logic board with canned air. Just pushes corrosion deeper. Use 99% IPA and a soft brush instead. Am I the only one who sees this constantly?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sage1mo ago

Go easy on the guy though, it's really not that deep. I've been doing board repairs for years and sometimes a quick blast of air is fine if you're just knocking off loose dust. Yeah sure if the board is wet or has sticky gunk then you're just making a mess, but for a dry board with some dust bunnies? It's not gonna kill anything. 99% IPA is great and all but it's not always practical when you're just doing a quick visual check. People act like one wrong move will vaporize the whole board when really these things are tougher than we give them credit for.

hugo_gonzalez681mo ago

Read a thing from one of the repair blogs that said a lot of people overthink cleaning boards. They tested blowing dust off with compressed air vs IPA on a bunch of old consoles and found no difference in performance. @the_sage is right, these boards aren't made of paper mache. I've seen guys douse a board in IPA and scrub it with a toothbrush like it's a crime scene, then slap it back in and it boots up fine. Air is fine for dust, just don't aim the nozzle right at a cap or a loose connector.