[time-nuts] Anti-Static conductive foam warning

[Daun Yeagley]

Hi Nigel

I've seen this happen in some other circumstances too, and one of the worst
ones was for VNA Cal kits.  It really makes a mess, and it's pretty hard to
clean up.
I'm wondering if anyone else who's seen this problem has some advice on a
good way to restore the items. 
It does seem that there are several types of foam (and rubber for that
matter)

Daun
 

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
Behalf Of GandalfG8 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 1:12 PM
To: time-nuts at febo.com
Subject: [time-nuts] Anti-Static conductive foam warning

Apologies to those who might see this on more than one group or list and
apologies again if it's old news to everyone but me, but I did think it
important enough to share.
 
I've just retrieved a pair of ICs that have been dry stored as spares in a
component storage rack since 1979, a long time I know but probably not
unusual for those of us using and maintaining older equipment.
 
These, as I thought anyway, were correctly stored with the pins pressed
into black anti-static foam, the usual stuff that's been used for this
purpose for years.
Unfortunately the foam has broken down into a sticky crumble and the
plating on the IC pins is quite badly corroded, probably to the point  where
they won't take solder. A metal canned crystal lying against the foam has
also corroded at the pont of contact.
I've seen this stuff turn into a gooey mess inside some instrument cases
but hadn't previously even thought about the same thing  happening where
it's used used for component storage.
 
I've checked other trays and whilst not too many used this stuff but  where
they did there's evidence of similar problems.
I've even got a later large component rack, all ok so far but for how
long?, where it was fitted from new to every drawer:-(
 
That's all, just offered as a word of warning to anyone else with
components similarly stored.
 
regards
 
Nigel
GM8PZR
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



   
_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.