Finally! An alternative to eraser...

rickss69

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 3, 2010
Messages
328
Confirmed with LN2/Cascade. Did I mention how much I hate eraser? :D

http://www.smooth-on.com/index.php?cPath=1115_1339

Best and final alternative I have come up with. All my motherboards are treated this way now.

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That is awesome! I will keep this in mind for when I move on to dry ice.
 
noob question

so what does this do?

I believe it's a plastic resin type material that can be used to coat electronics and provide resistance to water damage. It's popular among people who use sub-ambient cooling since condensation becomes a real threat.
 
What about clean up issues? The eraser was good because it didn't muck up the motherboard and made reselling a easy affair whereas with grease it basically made the board unsellable.
 
Dragon Skin is silicone based and was designed to be applied directly to human skin. You can apply this to a mb and leave it on forever or easily peel it off if the need arises. It leaves zero residue when removed.
 
Is the cost about the same as the eraser? How much of the trial size did you use to create a suitable layer? Can it be built up as easily as eraser? I wouldn't mind trying it out, but if it is hard to work with then it's useless.
 
Is the cost about the same as the eraser? How much of the trial size did you use to create a suitable layer? Can it be built up as easily as eraser? I wouldn't mind trying it out, but if it is hard to work with then it's useless.

http://www.smooth-on.com/index.php?cPath=1115_1339
Dragon Skin Fast is what I use and the trial size will treat about 20 motherboards I guesstimate. As far as ease of application goes, once you try it you will toss eraser as far as you can chuck it...:p
 
Hmm, if you use enough of this on a motherboard, could you submerge it? :D (Of course you'll have to fill up all the slots with cards/memory/whatever, and then seal them.)
 
Hmm, if you use enough of this on a motherboard, could you submerge it? :D (Of course you'll have to fill up all the slots with cards/memory/whatever, and then seal them.)

If you are talking of submerging in oil, no need to seal anything. If referring to water, then yes it is concievable but not advised...;)
 
The only thing that bothers me is these few things.

Pot Life: 12 minutes

Materials should be stored in and used at room
temperature (73°F / 23°C).

These products have a limited shelf life and
should be used as soon as possible.
 
If you use Dragon Skin Fast I would say you don't even have 12 minutes pot life...mix it and use it immeadiately.

I keep mine here in the bench room with no problems.

I don't know what the shelf life of this product is, but I cannot imagine any of it ceasing to to be usable in any timeframe.
 
The only thing that bothers me is these few things.

Looks to me like they are referring to the un-aplied chemicals.

Once the material is used and cured it should be able to stand up to much larger temperature ranges for long periods of time.
 
This is pretty interesting.

Back when I worked for Raytheon we used to conformal coat all of our boards we put into systems we sold to the navy with an epoxy resin. This practise is fairly uncommon in commercial electronics though.

I have never thought of using sub-ambient cooling as ambient water cooling seems to be pretty effective at keeping the CPU temp MUCH lower than air, so I never really thought of this issue.

Is there usually much to be gained from an overclocking perspective with sub-ambient cooling, or do you usually hit thepoint of diminishing returns when you go lower than ambient water?
 
In terms of shelf life some catalysts degrade over time, 3 months your are fine. But say you have some that is 6months old, I think it would just have a longer reaction time, and still make the same quality final product. Just my semi educated guess.
 
I have some on hand here that has been opened/used for longer than that and it still reacts the same for me. :)
 
I used liquid latex some 8 years ago on a graphics card, it comes already mixed and easy to work with, just apply with a brush, I could pour tapwater directly on the running card :D

Not as pretty as that transparent stuff though, liquid latex turned whiteish/yellowish when dry.
 
I have a question for those people who have used eraser and this stuff. Its apparent that this stuff is not electrically conductive but what about thermally conductive? I can see the benefits of coating large areas with this but many of the other tiny components and intergrated circuits on electronic hardware are designed to be passively air cooled. What happens to them when you put a barrier between them and the open air? Its great that we can super cool our main components with much less worry about frying them with condensation however if our multitude of support components are damaged by over heating that would be a big problem.

With this does the heat transfer through the motherboard to the sub-zero cooling device? If that is the case then I am no longer worried.
 
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