Oh heck yeah - I do industrial service on printers and PC's and along with
the stuff you mention here I have a customer with a 5224 printer out on the
production floor of a wood venier plant (very fine dust collects to
everything) and one in a paper cutting room, etc. I don't go onsite anymore
to these sites in Dockers and shirt/tie - it's strictly jeans and flannel
shirt anymore.
-> -----Original Message-----
-> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
-> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Ian Koller
-> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 11:48 PM
-> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org; Richard Erlacher
-> Subject: Re: Smoking around computers
->
->
->
->
-> Dick,
->
-> You've got plenty of other nasty stuff in the air in
-> machine shops too. Smoking cutting oils, mist coolant
-> drift, etc. One way to keep the gunk from being drawn
-> through the drives is to leave the cover off the case.
-> With an extra fan inside blowing across the boards,
-> keeps everything cool enough.
->
->
-> Ian
->
->
-> Richard Erlacher wrote:
-> >
-> > Bear in mind that I'm a FORMER smoker, and that there's no
-> Catholic like a
-> > convert, as they say ... I don't know about truly Classic
-> (pre-Apple/pre-CP/M)
-> > hardware in this context, but from my experience with current
-> hardware, i.e.
-> > PC's with a fan at the back of the PSU that exhausts air
-> that's drawn in through
-> > the front-loading peripherals, I'd make the following comment.
-> >
-> > I've disassembled a number of CDROM drives that clearly suffered from
-> > accumulation of dirt on the optic. In those few cases where
-> (a) I knew the user
-> > to be a frequent smoker, and (b) where I could smell the smoke
-> on the innards of
-> > the drive, I normally found that I couldn't clean the optic
-> with anything I
-> > dared put near the quite soluble plastics used in the drive
-> and specifically in
-> > the laser pickup.
-> >
-> > Likewise, I often have seen and smelled what was obviously
-> tabacco smoke residue
-> > on floppy disk innards. Those were easily cleaned, with the
-> exception of the
-> > heads, which in the cases where they were visibly stained (and
-> it's not easy to
-> > look at the heads, but, once they're visible, the damage is
-> easy to see) with
-> > what appeared to be smoke residue, and that generally has
-> rendered the drives
-> > unreliable. The environment in which I most frequently
-> encountered this problem
-> > was a machine shop where things were none too clean anyway,
-> but the mousepad
-> > showed plenty of evidence of a cigarette being held 2" in
-> front of the end of
-> > the box where the CDROM and FDD resided. It was no wonder the
-> CDROM and FDD
-> > smelled like a very dirty ashtray.
-> >
-> > This is largely the product of the stupid, Stupid, STUPID
-> practice of putting
-> > the fan in the PSU such that it exhausts the system in the way
-> in which it does.
-> > I routinely turn the fan around, and, in fact, on at least two
-> of my boxes, have
-> > put a second fan outside the PSU, with a filter between the
-> two. This has quite
-> > remarkably reduced the accumulation of dirt in the PSU as in
-> the rest of the
-> > box. It does make for a bit more noise, as the two fans tend
-> to "beat" due to
-> > the difference in speed. I once made a crude effort to
-> measure the temperature
-> > effect of doing this, and found the results favorable, since
-> the reduced
-> > presence of dirt meant freer airflow against the surfaces of
-> the IC's that
-> > required cooling in the box. I like to believe the conclusion
-> I drew was
-> > correct, but it was what I expected to find, so take it for
-> what it's worth.
-> >
-> > Tobacco smoke is VERY sticky and VERY pervasive, and should be
-> kept out of
-> > computer hardware, even if only because it's so nasty and hard
-> to remove. This
-> > can be accomplished, if you don't want to turn around your PSU
-> fan, by taping a
-> > piece of paper towel to the front of your hardware so it
-> requires the air to
-> > flow THROUGH the paper towel, rather than going, unimpeded,
-> through your
-> > front-loading peripherals. That's probably adequate. Some
-> cases once had a
-> > sliding cover that protected these peripherals from the hazard
-> of smoke and
-> > other airborne pollutants. The air will still get into your
-> computer, since its
-> > box isn't air-tight, but at least it won't flow through the
-> devices that would
-> > be damaged most by it.
-> >
-> > ----- Original Message -----
-> > From: "Douglas Quebbeman" <dhquebbeman_at_theestopinalgroup.com>
-> > To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
-> > Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 8:40 AM
-> > Subject: RE: Smoking around computers
-> >
-> > > > > From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
-> > > >
-> > > > > I wouldn't want anybody smoking near my computers!
-> > > >
-> > > > I've been chain-smoking around computers of various sorts
-> for 20 years, and
-> > > > I've never seen any evidence of smoke-related problems. I
-> prefer that
-> > > > computers don't smoke around me, however ;>)
-> > > >
-> > > > OTOH, audio gear seems to be very susceptible to my smoke,
-> and I have to
-> > > > clean all the switches and pots every three months or so.
-> > >
-> > > The early CDC disk drives (like many others I'm sure) has so
-> > > much room between platters you could stick your hand in there,
-> > > and enough room between the flying heads and the platter that
-> > > neither smoke nor dust was a problem. One CDC engineer remarked
-> > > to me about how they usually be smoking a cigarette while they
-> > > were *polishing* the platters (yes, I know about the stiction
-> > > cure joke, Lemon Pledge and all that). Which reminds me of an
-> > > MPEG that Elsa included with the Winner3000 drivers... you
-> > > watch this video, you'll think it's cigarettes that they're
-> > > selling...
-> > >
-> > > -dq
-> > >
-> > >
->
Received on Tue Dec 11 2001 - 10:13:36 GMT