Alternative To Canned Air.

I don't even want to think about how much money I have thrown away on canned air over the years. And, while I do have an air compressor in my garage, it's not the most convenient method of cleaning a computer (not to mention the dusty garage); I have to fill up, pull out the hose, clean the PC, drain the compressor, put away the hose. On top of that, you have to worry about things like moisture from the Air Compressor and ESD.

So, I have been looking at these "Electric Dusters" from DataVac. They have 2 different models under $100 that have piqued my interest, I'll drop links below.




http://www.amazon.com/Metro-Vacuum-...UTF8&qid=1460776492&sr=8-2&keywords=ED-500ESD



http://www.amazon.com/DataVac®-Elec...UTF8&qid=1460776492&sr=8-1&keywords=ED-500ESD


Does anyone own one of these gadgets, or have you used one? Whats your thought on these? In the long run it's obviously more cost effective that canned air, but I am left to wonder how well they perform. Your thoughts/opinions?

 

Moisture from an air compressor is less of a deal than people make it out to be. Its probably more damaging to the steel tanks which rust from the inside out, than to actual electronics itself.

I've personally found that you have to be awfully careful though with compressed air and how 'powerful' the nozzle is. I once ripped a number of surface mount soldered components off of a PCB by using a bit too powerful of a stream.

 

I live in Washington State, and occasionally my compressor will blow water out for a good 2-3 minutes, we just have crazy moisture here. It's so bad that I have a desiccant air dryer that I use whenever using air tools, or anything I don't want moisture in like my blast cabinet.

Have you ever used one of these DataVacs? I'm just wondering if they "really" work as well as they are touted. It's not like I go through $100 worth of canned air every year, but this seems like a useful gadget if it actually performs as well as canned air.

 

Personally, I prefer to use a vacuum cleaner. The new generation of Lithium-powered hand-held vacuum cleaners are useful around the house and are are also good for cleaning computers.

John

 

I've had the white one for probably almost 2 months and it's amazing. Seriously you won't regret purchasing one of these. I use it all the time, my tower, desk, monitor are all dusted at least one a week now and its costs me pennies for the electricity to run it versus the extortion price for canned air. Compressed air cannot even compare to this thing IMO. Its got serious blowing power and you can tilt it into all angles without fear of spraying moisture everywhere and it doesn't lose power after a minute of use.

Buy it. Seriously buy it now and never buy another can of compressed air.

 

I just use a small hand held vacuum cleaner to with soft brush and long hand and snot and that works find for vacuming laptop and desktop inside clean. Can Air does more to blow dust into places it shouldn't go and the fluid will cause more damage then it is to clean.

 

Awesome man, I was hoping to get some input from someone who has one of these. I have a little vac I use to get "obvious dust", but I really need that air to get into deep heat sinks and whatnot.

 

Just as a note, I'm pretty sure I fried my RAM in this laptop by using a vacuum cleaner on it - some kind of static discharge I believe, that's why I use cans of compressed air now. Perhaps the battery powered vacuums don't generate static - I don't know?

 

Everything creates static charge (even breathing). No matter what you use to clean components with; properly removing ALL power sources and grounding the equipment prior to the cleaning is vital.

 

How do you ground a can of compressed air or a vacuum cleaner before using to clean out dust?

 

You don't ground the equipment you're using to do the cleaning with.

You ground the equipment you're cleaning.

 

How do you do that? My understanding was that the electrical potential of the equipment you're working on (ie laptop) as well as yourself and any equipment you're using to clean all needs to be at the same electrical potential to prevent movement of electricity between any of the items. Is that incorrect, how do you achieve that?

EDIT: the way I try to do this currently is by:
1) unplugging laptop & removing battery, long press of power button of laptop to drain any residual electricity.
2) Grabbing tool which will be used for whatever I'm trying to achieve with the laptop (ie screwdriver) and then touching metal part of laptop chassis to ground myself & tool to laptop.

Is that about right? How would you do that if you were using a vacuum cleaner that might constantly generate it's own static as it's being used (I'm making an assumption)? (Based on the fact that I managed to fry my RAM with a vacuum clearner a couple of years ago and why I choose to use cans of compressed air instead now)

EDIT 2: I know there's anti static wrist straps & mats you can get if you want to do it properly, but I don't have those.

 

If the humidity is low then there is the risk of a build-up of static electricity on the vacuum cleaner nozzle. However, if the computer is not grounded during cleaning (ie all cables disconnected) then that static won't be attracted to discharge towards the computer.

John

 

Sounds the opposite to what tiller was saying about the importance of grounding the equipment you're working on (laptop). Can't static still build up on the two surfaces though (vacuum nossle & laptop), especially if there is not an outlet for it to get to ground - see the experiment of rubbing a balloon on your jumper and then holding it above your head & seeing your hair stick to the balloon. Arghh, I don't know, just be careful with vacuum cleaner - it correlated with fried RAM on my laptop.

EDIT: a quick Google search warns of vacuum cleaner woes:
http://www.howtogeek.com/57870/ask-...rolling-multiple-computers-with-one-keyboard/

 

It is the difference in potential that will make a discharge (towards one or the other); doesn't need a ground to make it jump.

But the more sensitive component will be the one that may be affected by it.

 

You are correct and is why equipotential bonding is used to minimize electrocution. For instance grounding a piece of equipment and having something come near it with a high potential can result in arcing across to or from the grounded equipment, not something you usually want to happen.