On 14/06/2017 6:21 AM, Cursitor Doom wrote:
One of the books I picked up on faultfinding and troubleshooting whilst
in London the other day (title escapes me but I can find it if anyone
cares) states that:

a) A bipolar transitor may be permanently damaged by dropping it on a
concrete floor from a height of over 4'. (I'm paraphrasing but that's the
gist of it).

Elsewhere it states that:

b) static sensitive components can be damaged by careless use of air
dusters, which can build up a static charge, in their vicinity.

Whilst I'm prepared to place some faith in assertion b) I'm reluctant to
do so in the case of a). However, I'm more concerned with b) because I
recently purchased a fair sized air compressor for blowing dust out of
the insides of test equipment which is of course considerably more
powerful than the aerosol cans the author was thinking about when he
asserted b).
Has anyone ever caused damage to static-sensitive components through the
use of compressed air? Is this something we really need to be mindful of?


**a) is possible (barely). Rip the top off a TO3 transistor and examine
the construction. You'll get the idea. As for b), I have no idea why any
sane person would use compressed air on any product, unless required by
very specific circumstances. It is a daft idea. A soft brush and a
vacuum cleaner is a far superior and gentler way to do things. Even
better, there is far less chance that the dust will end up inside pots,
switches and other mechanical components.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au