Guy at my shop swore by compressed air for cleaning motherboards, then blew a capacitor right off the board

I was helping a buddy troubleshoot a dead power supply last Tuesday and this older repair guy walks over, says "just blast it with air" and aims a 100 PSI nozzle at a 15 year old motherboard. Dust went everywhere, but so did a tiny capacitor that pinged off the wall. Has anyone else had a repair go sideways because someone was too aggressive with cleaning tools?

3 comments

3 Comments

colethomas12d agoTop Commenter

Man, I'd be pissed if someone blew a cap off my board too. Idk, even if the solder was weak, 100 PSI seems like overkill for cleaning. Maybe stick to a can of air and give it some distance.

thea60213d ago

Hold on, is it really that fragile though? I mean, I've seen people literally throw old boards in a parts drawer and they still work. Maybe that cap was already hanging on by a thread and the air was just the final push. Idk, it seems like if a little bit of compressed air takes a component off, then maybe there was a bad solder joint or something else going on with that board before you even touched it. I'm not saying you should go wild with a 100 PSI nozzle, but blaming the whole thing on the air feels a bit dramatic to me.

beth_park13d ago

Ha, yeah I read somewhere that some guy on a forum said a cap flew off his board at 50 PSI. Maybe it was loose but still feels like overkill to me.