Dealing with metal shavings

S

shadowwyvern

Gawd
Joined
Sep 22, 2005
Messages
604
After browsing through the worklogs for a while, I have noticed that everyone seems to deal with the metal shavings produced by dremeling/general working automatically. How do you do it? I am currently running my case without a side panel because every time I try to put it on, various irregularities in my case generate metal shavings, or at the very least a powder (upon wiping it down I noticed flecks that looked to be between 1 and 2mm square). Also, however Aspire tapped screw hole for these side panels, they did it in such a way that every time I insert a screw, no matter how carefully and gnetly I attempt to coax it in (I am not very good at this, partly because I don't want to create these shavings at all), I get long filings, that are probably up to a centimeter long. Also, I once noticed a molex connector that had a "hair" of metal on it, a very thin, long strand of metal. Each of these instances had me vacuming my case for upwards of a half hour (canister vac, kept a good distance away from the case) to ensure that I got every possible fleck out. Some other sources that I have found:

Header connectors, if you plug them in a slight angle, they scrape and create shavings
SATA connectors, similar to the headers
motherboard screws
powder-coated vantec fan controller

Are all of these dangerous? How best to avoid creating these metal shards? Will all threaded fasteners inherently produce fine metal powder? At what size does this become dangerous (I have found an awful lot of connections that could be bridged by any of these metal pieces)?

One final note: I have noticed in looking at water cooling installations that often the blocks have srings on their bolts. Do people tighten the nuts against the full spring pressure (ie they compress the spring soley by turning the nut)? wouldn't that create a lot of powder?
 
unless youre using the wrong type of screw(size and/or thread) or rubbing metal parts against metal extreemly hard you souldnt be getting metal shavings in your case, and even if you did get some during instalation it shouldnt be creating more as the computer is running

also i have never experienced problems with molex connectors creating metal shavings, i have had some that pulled the pins out of a cd rom, bit no metal shavings

i would suggest getting an acryilic/lexan case to eliminate the metal aspect
 
I'll be honest here...I've been building computers for almost 10 years and I've never worried about metal shavings. I even cut a hole in the top of my case once without taking everything out (steel Antec case, mind you) with just a piece of paper to catch the shavings. When I was done, I turned it on without cleaning up at all.

Like all things, moderation is the key. I've never had a problem with ANY shavings/dust/specks (or anything else, for that matter). If anything, I worry more about dust bunnies as they look horrible and, when I was living in Louisiana, I was concerned about them retaining moisture (humidity)...but even then, I cleaned the computer only 2 times a year (same time I took my baths...it WAS Louisiana, after all).
 
Alright, so my cleaning my case on the basis of possible shavings that I can't really see without looking very closely would be a waste of my time? what about cleaning my user interface on the premise that there might be metal shavings on my cloths/hands? For example, right now I am going to clean my case out (probably at least 10 min of vacuming, I don't have dusters, and I don't trust them not to blow the shavings to places where they do not belong) based on this:
Yesterday, I bumped into some trim (on a wall) while moving a large box. This summer, I brushed the same trim with some luggage that I had in a dorm room that was absolutly infested with glitter (from glitter glue, I assume, since it was sticking to everything)(don't ask, it was a summer program and I was placed in a dorm that during the acedemic year was a female dorm). Consequently, there may have been some transfer of this glitter (which I assume is nothing more than metal flecks) from luggage to trim and finally to my shoulder) After bumping into said trim, without doing anythign to clean whatever glitter transfer there was, I bent down to check something in my case, and due to a cramped area, I managed to brush a whole bunch of wires and drive cages with said shoulder.

Also, as I cannot be sure that my user interface did not come in contact with the substance, I am going to have to clean that out as well. Is this reasonable?
In case anybody is wondering this isn't a joke, I truly am this paranoid about my hardware.
 
If your metal shavings land where they can short something on the mobo or elsewhere you'll have a huge problem. The odds of that are slim, but the consequences would be dire, as in rhymes with fire-> I've done it once :eek:

Your hands are fine in all likelihood unless you're into body modification and a huge Johnny Depp fan. As far as getting the metal out, I've found that a damp (not wet) paper towel does the trick. That's why I take everything out of the cases- because I know that I can't clean up the components with this method but it works great for the case itself.

Also, if you are getting shavings from moving your side panel and inserting screws there's something seriously unusual going on. I don't even know how that would be possible unless you're using mismatched self-tapping screws.
 
My case is messed up. The side panel doesn't go on properly becuase the people that designed my case didn't allow enough clearance for my (normal) 120mm fan, and the hand indentation in the case (an Aspire X-Dreamer II) bumps against it and hence doesn't sit right. I have abandoned the side panel all together. Also, to make a threaded hole for securing these panels, they basicly punched a whole through the sheet metal, tapped the flanges, and called it good. The sharp edges on screws just slice off the ragged edges. Although
I had had the case for almost a year before discovering the problem, I can't chance anything now that I know it exists. If I really need to move my computer in a dangerous environment (IE airport, cago, ect) I'll just stick it in a bag any buy case straps.
Are you saying I would know it if ANY contact was crossed? I am fine with that, I just don't want some shaving sitting there and silently corrupting my data for months and months.
 
shadowwyvern said:
Also, however Aspire tapped screw hole for these side panels, they did it in such a way that every time I insert a screw, no matter how carefully and gnetly I attempt to coax it in (I am not very good at this, partly because I don't want to create these shavings at all), I get long filings, that are probably up to a centimeter long.
Click to expand...

Not good. :(
You are likely using the wrong size screw (or thread count) for the hole. Or you have it way off - cocked to one side etc ...
 
shadowwyvern said:
Also, to make a threaded hole for securing these panels, they basicly punched a whole through the sheet metal, tapped the flanges, and called it good. The sharp edges on screws just slice off the ragged edges.
Click to expand...
Yeah... that's how all steel cases are done, just FYI.
:p
 
Shows how much I know about machining.
By way, off, you mean very noticably, correct (better answer, what angle from vertical, approx?)? When I worked on my case before, I never took it out from under my desk, which meant I basically did it by touch (the screws I am talking about are thumb screws). But now, no matter how much I attmpt to screw it in straight (even looking at it head on and putting pressure on my side panel to avoid ANY stress on the screw threads), I still encounter a point where I get some "grainy" resistance. By this I mean it feels like there are fine particle of sand between the threads. After such a feeling, I have invaribly found metal filings in the threads (usually I moisten a cloth with alcohol and swab it around). So, how do I avoid this? And have you ever heard of shards being produced by PS/2 connectors? I probably plugged mine in around 25 degress from vetical in some direction (agian, doing it by touch) and when I pulled it out, I swabbed it and found a fleck. Now, I am almost afraid to unpug it again :(
 
When drilling into my case i used a motherload of blue painters duct tape and taped everthing i could inside the case so any shavings would slide down.
I taped a little pouch the opposite side of what i was drilling on the side of my case.

For a fillport i put in the top of my case, i made a tape pouch around a vacum hose. This worked very well.

All in all, i spent about an hour taping. Better safe than sorry.

Good luck.

- the tape master
 
> " All in all, i spent about an hour taping. Better safe than sorry. " <

The truely "safe" thing would have been to remove ALL the internal components from the case.
Would have taken less time than all that taping. Don't know about you, but I can strip a
typical ATX system down to a pile, then have it back together running again in less than 15 minutes.
And it totally eliminates the risk of a short from metal filings. :)
 
If you really spent an hour taping, you probably should have gutted the case. It would only take about an hour to tear everything out and put it all back in and would be safer and cheaper (masking tape ain't free you know :p ).

To me that's what it boils down to is that the risk is fairly small, but the consequence would be pretty bad.

As far as a filing/shaving ending up corrupting data I'd say that's next to impossible. If there's something physically shorting a circuit it would likely be bad. As I said, I watched a mosfet catch fire once when it was shorted.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd say since hard drives are magnetic and if an integral connection on the pcb were shorted it wouldn't work at all, I feel pretty safe saying that data corruption couldn't happen from a metal filing except in a really unusual case.
 
OK good. Because all the backups in will do no good if you don't think you need them. My problem though is that the shavings's don't come from modding. They coem from things like stripping the components out and reinstallign them. To reiterate what I said in my previous post, what is the "tollerance" for threaded fasteners (from vertical)? What about connections such as PS/2 (and what about my story about that?)

And my opinion about taping (not that it means a whole lot give my questions):
With all my concern over this, I have gotten extremly good at spotting potential problem spots in cases. It is far better to isolate the shavings, and suck them away direct from their source than to attmpt to clean them out of every single spot in your case. And I would assume dremmels/saws/drill would throw particle with sufficient velovity to get them just abotu anywhere.
 
I am reviving this thread because it has a lot of info about my problem already in it. This issues are very pressing (to me), and it seems that I cannot do anything without creating shavings. I have purchased a new case (my other one was loud and somewhat flimsy, so it was an upgrade that was inevitable anyway) that hopefully should help with some issues due to its higher quality construction. But, issues still stand:

1.) What is the error tollerance for screws (ie how many degrees from vertical can you start to apply torque and excpect the screw to straighten out without stripping the thread)?
2.)What is that tollercance for other connectors like ps/2? I plug these in by feel and have actually witnessed it create some metal flecks.
3.) Do screws naturally generate some metal powder/dust no matter how carefully they are installed?
4.)What about installing screws that have a load under them (most relevent expample I can think of is installing waterblocks, where there is a spring on a blot that you have to compress by tightening the nut)?
5.)Any other tips for reducing these things? Should I even be worried if I am only marginally careful when installing hardware (read: distracted)? Is it safe to plug in things like keyboards. mice, ect by feel?

These may seem like absurd questions, but they seem important, and I have been unable to reconcile them with my experience.
 
I didnt read any of this, but by god... let me tell you. Metal shavings... they.. hurt. They hurt bad.

Cut cut cut, man... that window looks nice... I think Im gonna rub my ey BAAAAAAAAAAAH! Now, that is how it starts out, rubbing... later the shavings bore themselves into the pupil of your eye like what happened to me. Very... very painful. Also, shavings on your pantlegs can lead to boreing themselves into your forearms when you sit down and rest your arms (Ive experienced this). Today I was in Homedepot getting paint... and... noticed I had a big ass metal shaving in my hand.
 
shadowwyvern said:
I am reviving this thread because it has a lot of info about my problem already in it. This issues are very pressing (to me), and it seems that I cannot do anything without creating shavings. I have purchased a new case (my other one was loud and somewhat flimsy, so it was an upgrade that was inevitable anyway) that hopefully should help with some issues due to its higher quality construction. But, issues still stand:

1.) What is the error tollerance for screws (ie how many degrees from vertical can you start to apply torque and excpect the screw to straighten out without stripping the thread)?
2.)What is that tollercance for other connectors like ps/2? I plug these in by feel and have actually witnessed it create some metal flecks.
3.) Do screws naturally generate some metal powder/dust no matter how carefully they are installed?
4.)What about installing screws that have a load under them (most relevent expample I can think of is installing waterblocks, where there is a spring on a blot that you have to compress by tightening the nut)?
5.)Any other tips for reducing these things? Should I even be worried if I am only marginally careful when installing hardware (read: distracted)? Is it safe to plug in things like keyboards. mice, ect by feel?

These may seem like absurd questions, but they seem important, and I have been unable to reconcile them with my experience.
Click to expand...

Wow... just... wow. You must be really OCD. I have been building computers since I was 10 and have never once considered metal shavings from pluging a keyboard into a PS2 port. Do not worry about normal use, if dust/shaving is created by screwing in a screw... then... so be it!

Also, dont worry about plugging stuff in by feel... and definitly dont worry about the % of the angle the screw is at...
 
You shouldn't be having to force a screw into a hole. If it's the right screw for the hole it will screw in with a minimum of force (until the final tightening of course). You want to get it as straight on as you can, but you don't have to be perfect - if it doesn't want to go in, don't force it, just back it out and try again. You shouldn't be getting any 'filings' or 'shavings' from putting the right screw into a hole.

As far as plugging in cables and the like, I've never experienced them creating any metal dust/filings/shavings etc, and I routinely do it by feel, especially on my HTCP which I have to put into the cabinet before I can plug half the plugs in.
 
Legion© said:
You shouldn't be having to force a screw into a hole. If it's the right screw for the hole it will screw in with a minimum of force (until the final tightening of course). You want to get it as straight on as you can, but you don't have to be perfect - if it doesn't want to go in, don't force it, just back it out and try again. You shouldn't be getting any 'filings' or 'shavings' from putting the right screw into a hole.

As far as plugging in cables and the like, I've never experienced them creating any metal dust/filings/shavings etc, and I routinely do it by feel, especially on my HTCP which I have to put into the cabinet before I can plug half the plugs in.
Click to expand...

I think he is being OCd, even being rough on some old mobos I have here I couldnt really duplicate and "filings" or "shavings".
 
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