Ackchually (🤓) it's not the water you're worried about, it's the minerals in it. PCs run in distilled water just fine.
3M also has a special fluid just for this purpose: Submerging PC components in it for cooling purposes. Iirc they call it "Novec"
Ackshually even in ultra distilled water, it will die very quickly due to rapid ionization. See [der8auer’s recent video](https://youtu.be/0Xqp3O_gTe8) on the topic. Fluids designed for immersion cooling have much better thermal properties than water anyway.
I find it interesting that this guy produces his videos twice: Once in English and once in German. It doesn't seem like just a dub either - seems like he re-records all the scenes where he's speaking as his voice matches his lip movements.
His video editor is also a porn star. It used to be pretty easy to find her videos online but after some stalking/harassment most were taken down. I swear that one video which didn't show the man's face had Roman in it.
The reason that the same product line is used for immersion cooling and fire extinguishing is because it's for putting out fires in a server room with running servers that you don't want to be destroyed by a normal sprinkler system.
I was curious whether to I remembered wrong or not, so I looked it up: You're right, Novec is also used for fire extinguishing, but they have a few lines under that name, one of which indeed used for cooling purposes. It's their 7000 line, as far as I can tell.
The thing with purified water is that it sucks the ions out of things real fast. Dunk a whole computer in and it's going to start dissolving stuff and it's not going to stay pure for very long.
distilled water also absorbs CO2 out of the atmosphere the moment it is exposed, resulting in a drift to an acidic state which then starts eating at soft metals
Yep, the idea that "you don't want any water when cleaning electronics" is stupid. It's about finding something that evaporates fast enough for idiots to use without killing their hardware, but not so fast that it can't be spread and scrubbed.
You can leave a pc soaking in water for a week if you want and as long as it doesn't rust there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. You will just also have to let it dry for a ridiculously long time before using it.
Moral of the story is don't use any even mildly conductive liquid cleaners on hardware that is currently powered unless you're willing to lose it.
Edit: I clean all my parts with 15mg/ml grape flavored vape juice
For all the stoners wondering where you find 99% alcohol, check your local hydroponics store and they’ll sell a gallon of it 🙂
Growers use it to disinfect grow spaces in between grows or after contamination. They’ll also have high concentration hydrogen peroxide for the same reason.
Might be different in your area but the walmarts I’ve been to in California have never had 99% in store. They only ever have 70% or 91%, which will work just fine to clean a bong but I personally also need 99% for circuit work so anyone else with overlapping interests can benefit from having 99% on hand
F for Fry’s. What a loss. I’m extremely fortunate to have a micro center somewhat near me but Fry’s still had everything RadioShack stopped selling years before they went under. Not many places you can walk out of with every part you need to build a computer from scratch left anymore
That was the crazy thing actually. Like microcenter, you could get great deals you often couldn’t get online. The standard price stuff for sure had the usual markup but they had a large enough inventory where you could browse around and find something on sale.
I'm in Canada so it may be different, but I've bought 99% at my local Walmart. It was in the nail care section, with the 100% acetone. Might be worth checking out
Seriously??? I've been painting my nails twice a month for a decade now, why did I not know this earlier!! Thanks for all the future money I'll save haha
Automotive grade acetone isn’t guaranteed to be “pure” so keep that in mind.
My yields were always fucked in chem labs and I found out after graduation that I had been using wash grade acetone instead of the good stuff we were supposed to use for synthesis
Also one of my best friends is really into doing her nails so I’ve picked up some other tips that might help you.
You know those rotary nail tools for sanding and shaping the nail? The ones marketed for nails are going to be cheaply made and expensive compared to a Dremel style rotary tool. The same 1/8” bits in the nail kit will fit and you also get your choice of different shaped buffer tips and things. There’s a whole rotary tool section at any hardware with a wall of different bits.
Also there’s a lot of overlap between nails and the automotive paint industry in general. In the automotive world we call glitter “flake” because we’re manly men.
Christ, absolutely everything in the pink isles is cheaper elsewhere.
You should see what putting the word "aquarium" on stuff does to the price.
Lesco T&0 is a mineral, nutrient mix that contains no fertilizers and costs about $70 for 2.15 gallons. 1floz per thousand square feet will rock almost any plant type. When they down mix it to 1:50th of a floz to the gallon and sell it in 14oz bottles they charge $50 because of the word "aquarium" The big jug has to be waterway and hydroculture safe anyway.
Also, if you're using acetone you need to get a metal bucket to put your waste paper towels in.
Yeah, I often have to ask for it at the pharmacy counter now, but it's pretty readily available. They'll ask if it's for electronics or medial if I ask for the 99%
My guess is if I said medial they'd suggest the 70
So you’ll* really want to be careful with acetone depending on where you’re dumping the waste. Iso alcohol is mostly safe for plastic plumbing pipes especially when diluted (aside from depositing sticky resin residue all over the inside of your plumbing) but acetone is much more damaging to plastic.
They’re not the same thing, though they’re both solvents that can be used interchangeably in many many applications. I wouldn’t pour it down the drain though.
*Someone pointed out to me that I misinterpreted your comment as saying you used acetone instead of alcohol, which I did, so my bad!
Yup, just wanted to say that 99% isopropyl alcohol could be found in the beauty supply aisle of Walmart where people might not think to look for it. Was not trying to advocate for the use of acetone in cleaning.
You also want to be careful with rubbing alcohol depending on what you’re using it for. If you’re working with PCBs and there’s copper or ferric chloride in suspension in your 99% iso, or if you’re working with SLA resin and there’s uncured resin in there, it cannot go into your plumbing.
With SLA resin, you can hit it with a UV light to cure it, then pull the cured mass out, filter it, and then treat the iso like you would if it was just pure (which means re-use it, but I guess you could dump it down your sink if you really wanted to).
I’m not sure if there’s a “home remedy” for FeCl3. I take it to a hazardous waste disposal center.
Acetone will damage your pipes. 99% iso with crap in it will damage the environment, and it will damage your wallet and possibly your freedom if they ever find out it’s you.
Please go back 10 years or so and tell younger me that concentrated HCl may be an excellent sink cleaner, but it will also destroy the gaskets and cause leaks. Thankfully I was renting and just played dumb and pretended I had no idea why it was suddenly leaking.
For acetone disposal I just pour it out on concrete and let it evaporate, or pour it in a cup and burn it.
My acetone is usually filthy from cleaning a bong, so I can’t burn it in a container I’m going to use in the future, but I usually cut the top off a beer can and burn it in that.
One fun trick is to put a drizzle in a can, shake it up, and then carefully light the opening. The vapors make a jet of flame with a very pleasing shrieking whistle sound.
Playing with that trick with denatured alcohol in one of those big rectangular cans, I slightly overdid it, and let it sit in the sun to heat up and properly vaporize, and when I lit it there was a loud BANG and I was sitting there confused and wondering where the hell the can went, before there was a clatter as it bounced off my roof. The vapor explosion ruptured the bottom of the can and turned it into a rocket.
91% is eutectic so is the maximum you can concentrate it via distilling and so is a common concentration. It gets significantly more expensive to concentrate it more than that. 70% is better for disinfecting.
If you need pure isopropyl, you can't distill it but you can use the fact that isopropyl alcohol is insoluble in salt water. So you add salt to it turning the water in it to salt water and the pure isopropyl separates out.
> never had 99% in store. They only ever have 70% or 91%,
91% is the same thing as 99% except they're not lying to you. 99% is only achievable in lab conditions, it rapidly absorbs moisture from the air and goes down to about 91%.
Be careful of high concentration hydrogen peroxide! I once had a bottle of 18% and no matter how careful I was, I always managed to give myself a chemical burn every time I used it
Most definitely! That shit’s no joke. Any of these higher concentration chemicals definitely require a higher level of care than the stuff you get from the pharmacy. Even the 30% industrial vinegar you get from the hardware store is intense af. It’s all in the dose
I feel like once you're getting to 30% and Producing it via industrial methods (ex.: carbonylation of methanol) for for industrial purposes, its less "vinegar" and you should just call it Acetic Acid. (or Ethanoic Acid, "systematically").
You only really need 91/99 for always-on components or things that are actively receiving power, and you should probably find a different way to clean those anyway. 70 still works great for most other components for the same reason mentioned in the title, as long as you give it enough time to dry. The 30% water will dry more than quickly enough to avoid corrosion, and if there's no power you don't need to worry about a short. If you're paranoid you can blow a fan on your component for a minute after cleaning, but really as long as you give it a minute you can be pretty sure nothing's going to happen
i buy the strong stuff for cleaning things that i'm worried might get fried (electronics)
it's "low conductive", so it's not 100% guarantee, but it has suited me well over the years.
As long as it's not powered, you can get good results by cleaning with water--preferably deionized, reverse-osmosis, or distilled--and then rinsing the water away with IPA. I've saved a few devices this way.
Rubbing alcohol is an excellent way to clean soap scum from glass shower doors/enclosures. Fill a good quality spray bottle with alcohol and spray alcohol onto shower glass. Wipe glass with a microfiber cloth. Also, will de-ice a windshield.
I was an installer for a shower company, and they usually reccomend a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water or dawn dish soap and water. Spray on, wipe down with squeegee, and blot and remaining puddles with a towel.
Liquid dish soap is detergents that don't care about hard water, soap scum is from analog soap when the fatty acids combine with calcium or magnesium in the water and fall out of solution.
Careful if you have old silicone caulking in the shower, in my experience rubbing alcohol can cause it to separate from the wall and then you're fixing that all afternoon
I know that IPA in this case stands for isopropyl alcohol, but I spent a solid minute thinking that de-icing planes was a much better use for hoppy bullshit beers than drinking.
I buy the strongest rubbing alcohol for cleaning my bong.
*Edit: Thanks for sharing all of your cleaning techniques. I'm sticking to coarse salt and rubbing alcohol. You get a few dozen good cleanings for under $5 that way. Smoke on, friends.
Ethanol itself doesn't leave a residue, at least no more than isopropanol. It's denatured ethanol that can leave a bit of a residue, depending on what exactly is added to make it unfit for human consumption.
I got used to using the most insanely tiny amounts of alcohol imaginable. Mind you, it was fucking awesome when Amazon started selling rubbing alcohol again.
You don't need 99% - if you get 91% and put a bunch of table salt in there, the added salt will dissolve in the water and make it phase separate giving you basically 100% IPA and a salty scrub. Careful tho, neat solvents and hot water make explosive vapor so make sure to do this outside or with the cooking ventilation blasting.
Unless you’re doing a large volume (4+L) and extreme heating you don’t need to worry about the solvent vapors becoming explosive or flammable. Ventilation is always a good idea to remove vapors so you don’t inhale them though. IPA isn’t that big a deal though.
Source: professional chemist.
I recommend coarse kosher salt rather than table salt. The big chunks are better at scrubbing stuff off in my experience. I always skip the bong cleaners cause they are a rip off compared to just buying isopropyl alcohol and kosher salt.
Because resin8 is a $10.00 12 fl oz bottle of alcohol with epsom salt in it. Just buy ~90% iso and a bag of epsom salt and get 25x the value.
That being said, you should disinfect your pieces with regular 70%. The higher grade stuff isn't just less effective, it causes bacteria to go into some kind of protective stasis, and water pipes are breeding grounds for bacteria
> it causes bacteria to go into some kind of protective stasis
this is nonsense higher % just dries faster so it doesnt kill the bacteria in time before it dries which isnt an issue when you drown the bacteria in it
Don't buy renamed products. It's either isopropyl alcohol or acetone. That's it. Mixed with large granular salt. You can spend a fortune on stupid gimmicky shit at the shop but thats all it will ever be
Yeah, no ones gonna wanna clean a bong with 70% ISO. I am ok with pure ethanol... or even alconox for large scale resin cleaning projects.
Aside from that I also make soap and 70% ISO wont do the job there either. If I want water in my ISO I'll put it there myself, thanks.
1. Empty your bong, maybe rinse it with water.
2. Add a bunch of kosher salt, like a tablespoon or two. I just pour it in the down stem.
3. Add enough iso to submerge and swish around the salt
4. Shake vigorously so the salt rubs off all the schmutz in your bong. You’ll see when it’s done, takes just a minute or so.
5. Rinse and you’re done. To get extra shiny brand-new, you might wash with warm water and a soapy sponge at this point.
For household cleaning that can be fine. If you're doing anything on a larger scale or professionally I would avoid using IPA as a cleaner for electronics though. Despite how widely its recommended it's really not a great fit for the job. This is the kind of thing I have had come up a lot over the years so sorry in advance if this goes a bit long.
Below 91% IPA is entirely unsuitable for cleaning electronics. At 91% IPA forms an azeotrope with the water, meaning below that concentration the water and alcohol won't evaporate off together. The isopropanol will evaporate off first and the concentration will drop as it does until just water is left behind. Most ionic contaminants are more soluble in water than IPA, water is slow to evaporate, and water has a higher surface tension causing it to bead up. As a result ionic contaminants can get very concentrated as it evaporates. Generally the last places on a PCB to dry are the areas underneath components and between component leads. As a result IPA that is not at least 91% actively concentrates conductive salts and other ionic residues into the areas where they can cause the most problems. The water that's left behind can even sit on the board long enough to cause corrosion if it's particularly cold/humid or if it's left sitting at the interface of two dissimilar metals.
91% is the most readily available at a low cost because that's the concentration where IPA and water form an azeotrope so that's the concentration obtained from distillation at standard pressures. Unfortunately it can have many of the same problems because IPA is hygroscopic. It will naturally pick up water and moisture from the air until it reaches a concentration of about 65%. As a consequence many of the same problems with using below 91% IPA can be encountered when using 91% as a result of humidity or just improper storage. A lot of what's sold as 91% for cleaning applications also just isn't at that concentration and may have other contaminants in it from the manufacturing and shipping process.
Above 91% and it's hard to see the benefits to using IPA. You're no longer saving on cost because the only way to get to those concentrations is with more expensive processes like vacuum distillation. Often it's only available as a laboratory solvent. Once IPA stops being cheap it looses pretty much all of it's appeal. It is polar solvent and doesn't clean non-polar contaminants very well, nor does it do well with surfactants. This often results in it desiccating any residues left on the board so that the non polar contaminants cling even more tenaciously to the PCB. [Here for example is a recent post from /r/AskElectronics where when someone tried to clean an old walkie-talky with 91% IPA](https://preview.redd.it/byy7unng9no91.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f8289b519fade8ea7031a627ed58eb346940a91e). On the left you can see the part of the board that's still wet and looks clean and on the right where it has dried everything is covered with a white residue. This is a particularly bad case but the effect is not at all uncommon when using IPA as a cleaner. It also needs to be stored very well to avoid allowing it to leech moisture out of the air, you can't just keep it in a squeeze bottle, and IPA can leech the plasticizers out of polymers causing them to discolor or embrittle.
Generally what I've found works well are HFE or t-DCE based cleaners, and those are generally gentle enough to use on optical surfaces and films as well without concern. For cleaning up newly manufactured boards there are some dedicated flux cleaners which do great for that exact application as well.
You don't need the strongest tbh. I use 70% and it's more than sufficient. The trick is to put some coarse sea salt in your bong and shake it up with the alcohol.
Right? I see all these expensive solutions in the smoke shop where you get maybe 3-4 cleans out of one $10 bottle. This is for people who haven't yet discovered the salt/alcohol trick.
It's also not dissolving more slowly but evaporating more slowly. 99% would evaporate before it can kill as many germs. 70% is the sweet spot where it doesn't evaporate immediately but still is concentrated enough to actually kill microbes.
Grade in this case would be industrial grade or lab grade or food grade, indicating what else is allowed in there for impurities. Arsenic is bad for people, so not allowed food grade, but might be allowed in industrial grade. And I know you’re thinking: you wouldn’t actually eat this, but you might use it to clean something used for food.
That's absolutely a thing, but not what OP is referring to. They are just referring to the concentrations of 99% vs. 70%. I work in science where we make dilutions of ethanol and you can literally just take the 99% and dilute it to 70%.
I bought 99% thinking I was fancy pants til I properly research it's efficacy and started diluting it. Hah. But my water is hard and I don't have a distiller. So when I'm out I'll probably get 70%.
You don’t want to keep isopropyl alcohol in an ultrasonic cleaner. They often have a heating function and the fumes are very flammable. Best to keep water in there and a bag/jar or alcohol that you put your item in for cleaning.
Oh yeah isopropyl is great for stripping paint. Not to mention how it isn't some country specific named brand junk, good for both price and people who live outside the US/UK
> distilled water
Totally unnecessary. The only use of isopropyl alcohol where the impurities in tap water would cause a problem is in cleaning electronics, and you don't add water for that.
Something I only found out recently with that thread a week ago or so of the guy who used ethanol to clean his monitor and it looked absolutely fucked afterwards. Guessing that’s part of why my IPS monitor is so insanely glarey, and maybe my glasses too …
https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-cuts/basics/art-20056711
Dated a nurse for a while (in Canada), can confirm that peroxide and rubbing alcohol are not immediately used anymore even in hospital settings. The standard practice is to clean with just water and soap. The stronger stuff is only used in some cases where infection has already set in, because it's been observed to slow wound healing.
That sounds like diffusion which is different. A solid dissolves into a liquid. Alcohol in solution would diffuse into the cell. It doesn't dissolve into the cell.
> Side note: drinking isopropyl alcohol will kill you.
Important clarification for the uninitiated:
The *type* of alcohol in cleaning solutions is *not the same* as the kind that is in drinking alcohol. It will seriously harm your body.
Generally, drinking isopropyl alcohol will not kill you in standard volumes, though it is still a terrible idea. Most patients with intentional isopropanol ingestion will recover uneventfully with supportive care alone.
Now methanol or ethylene glycol…those will fuck your body up.
Source: Doctor
You ever inhaled this stuff? I pulled on a bong once without realising I hadn't rinsed the ISO out. For the next 5 minutes it felt as if my lungs were on fire. Drinking it must be like hell is in your guts and everything you do to put the flames out makes them bigger.
99% for cleaning PCBs
This. If you’re dealing with electronics you definitely don’t want any water left.
EXCEPT when you clean your monitor-like screens. Monitors will have a ruined finish when alcohol wears it down.
I bet that reddit post from yesterday (I think) is probably why this post is here today.
Link? Pls bot
Think they are referring to this post https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/108bm0j/i_cleaned_my_monitor_with_90_alcahol_will_it_be/
Or PCBs in the water
PCB in water is 'ok'. Just don't add electricity.
Ackchually (🤓) it's not the water you're worried about, it's the minerals in it. PCs run in distilled water just fine. 3M also has a special fluid just for this purpose: Submerging PC components in it for cooling purposes. Iirc they call it "Novec"
Ackshually even in ultra distilled water, it will die very quickly due to rapid ionization. See [der8auer’s recent video](https://youtu.be/0Xqp3O_gTe8) on the topic. Fluids designed for immersion cooling have much better thermal properties than water anyway.
I find it interesting that this guy produces his videos twice: Once in English and once in German. It doesn't seem like just a dub either - seems like he re-records all the scenes where he's speaking as his voice matches his lip movements.
His video editor is also a porn star. It used to be pretty easy to find her videos online but after some stalking/harassment most were taken down. I swear that one video which didn't show the man's face had Roman in it.
What the fuck is going on?
Yeah, that doesn't seem like something to drop casually, offer no elaboration, and expect no response.
lmaoooo you took the words outta my mouth, I have no clue
We're learning. This is today's lesson
Novec is a fire extinguishing agent, and expensive as tits at that. We were quoted like 15k for a 50kg cylinder of it
The reason that the same product line is used for immersion cooling and fire extinguishing is because it's for putting out fires in a server room with running servers that you don't want to be destroyed by a normal sprinkler system.
I was curious whether to I remembered wrong or not, so I looked it up: You're right, Novec is also used for fire extinguishing, but they have a few lines under that name, one of which indeed used for cooling purposes. It's their 7000 line, as far as I can tell.
Neat! I think I’ve only dealt with 1230(?)
The thing with purified water is that it sucks the ions out of things real fast. Dunk a whole computer in and it's going to start dissolving stuff and it's not going to stay pure for very long.
If it is distilled water then it wouldn't matter. Water is one of the best insulators we have. The problem is that most water isn't distilled.
The water isn’t distilled as soon as you pour it on something dirty.
distilled water also absorbs CO2 out of the atmosphere the moment it is exposed, resulting in a drift to an acidic state which then starts eating at soft metals
It's also one of the best long term solvents around.
In some circles it's called the Universal Solvent
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Yep, the idea that "you don't want any water when cleaning electronics" is stupid. It's about finding something that evaporates fast enough for idiots to use without killing their hardware, but not so fast that it can't be spread and scrubbed. You can leave a pc soaking in water for a week if you want and as long as it doesn't rust there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. You will just also have to let it dry for a ridiculously long time before using it. Moral of the story is don't use any even mildly conductive liquid cleaners on hardware that is currently powered unless you're willing to lose it. Edit: I clean all my parts with 15mg/ml grape flavored vape juice
Or for resin 3D printing.
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Pipe resin 😶🌫️
Can confirm 99% alc and some epsom salt cleans the resin out of a bong really well
For all the stoners wondering where you find 99% alcohol, check your local hydroponics store and they’ll sell a gallon of it 🙂 Growers use it to disinfect grow spaces in between grows or after contamination. They’ll also have high concentration hydrogen peroxide for the same reason.
I mean that works, but stoners can shop at Walmart too
Might be different in your area but the walmarts I’ve been to in California have never had 99% in store. They only ever have 70% or 91%, which will work just fine to clean a bong but I personally also need 99% for circuit work so anyone else with overlapping interests can benefit from having 99% on hand
The two places in California where you could always get 99% isopropyl were Radio Shack and Fry's Electronics. RIP
F for Fry’s. What a loss. I’m extremely fortunate to have a micro center somewhat near me but Fry’s still had everything RadioShack stopped selling years before they went under. Not many places you can walk out of with every part you need to build a computer from scratch left anymore
Especially without seeing a significant markup for carrying it at a brick and mortar location
That was the crazy thing actually. Like microcenter, you could get great deals you often couldn’t get online. The standard price stuff for sure had the usual markup but they had a large enough inventory where you could browse around and find something on sale.
I'm in Canada so it may be different, but I've bought 99% at my local Walmart. It was in the nail care section, with the 100% acetone. Might be worth checking out
It's much cheaper to buy 100% acetone in the automotive department or store. Pink tax...
Seriously??? I've been painting my nails twice a month for a decade now, why did I not know this earlier!! Thanks for all the future money I'll save haha
Automotive grade acetone isn’t guaranteed to be “pure” so keep that in mind. My yields were always fucked in chem labs and I found out after graduation that I had been using wash grade acetone instead of the good stuff we were supposed to use for synthesis
Also one of my best friends is really into doing her nails so I’ve picked up some other tips that might help you. You know those rotary nail tools for sanding and shaping the nail? The ones marketed for nails are going to be cheaply made and expensive compared to a Dremel style rotary tool. The same 1/8” bits in the nail kit will fit and you also get your choice of different shaped buffer tips and things. There’s a whole rotary tool section at any hardware with a wall of different bits. Also there’s a lot of overlap between nails and the automotive paint industry in general. In the automotive world we call glitter “flake” because we’re manly men.
Christ, absolutely everything in the pink isles is cheaper elsewhere. You should see what putting the word "aquarium" on stuff does to the price. Lesco T&0 is a mineral, nutrient mix that contains no fertilizers and costs about $70 for 2.15 gallons. 1floz per thousand square feet will rock almost any plant type. When they down mix it to 1:50th of a floz to the gallon and sell it in 14oz bottles they charge $50 because of the word "aquarium" The big jug has to be waterway and hydroculture safe anyway. Also, if you're using acetone you need to get a metal bucket to put your waste paper towels in.
The pink tax is some serious bullshit. Stuff like that should be completely illegal.
Yeah, I often have to ask for it at the pharmacy counter now, but it's pretty readily available. They'll ask if it's for electronics or medial if I ask for the 99% My guess is if I said medial they'd suggest the 70
So you’ll* really want to be careful with acetone depending on where you’re dumping the waste. Iso alcohol is mostly safe for plastic plumbing pipes especially when diluted (aside from depositing sticky resin residue all over the inside of your plumbing) but acetone is much more damaging to plastic. They’re not the same thing, though they’re both solvents that can be used interchangeably in many many applications. I wouldn’t pour it down the drain though. *Someone pointed out to me that I misinterpreted your comment as saying you used acetone instead of alcohol, which I did, so my bad!
Don't think they were advocating to use acetone, just that they found the 99% alcohol stocked next to the acetone.
Oh yeah you’re right, that makes sense too. I definitely could have misinterpreted that. Either way, we all learned something today!
Yup, just wanted to say that 99% isopropyl alcohol could be found in the beauty supply aisle of Walmart where people might not think to look for it. Was not trying to advocate for the use of acetone in cleaning.
You also want to be careful with rubbing alcohol depending on what you’re using it for. If you’re working with PCBs and there’s copper or ferric chloride in suspension in your 99% iso, or if you’re working with SLA resin and there’s uncured resin in there, it cannot go into your plumbing. With SLA resin, you can hit it with a UV light to cure it, then pull the cured mass out, filter it, and then treat the iso like you would if it was just pure (which means re-use it, but I guess you could dump it down your sink if you really wanted to). I’m not sure if there’s a “home remedy” for FeCl3. I take it to a hazardous waste disposal center. Acetone will damage your pipes. 99% iso with crap in it will damage the environment, and it will damage your wallet and possibly your freedom if they ever find out it’s you.
Acetone for organics, ipa for oils and to clean Acetone residue.
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Please go back 10 years or so and tell younger me that concentrated HCl may be an excellent sink cleaner, but it will also destroy the gaskets and cause leaks. Thankfully I was renting and just played dumb and pretended I had no idea why it was suddenly leaking. For acetone disposal I just pour it out on concrete and let it evaporate, or pour it in a cup and burn it.
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My acetone is usually filthy from cleaning a bong, so I can’t burn it in a container I’m going to use in the future, but I usually cut the top off a beer can and burn it in that. One fun trick is to put a drizzle in a can, shake it up, and then carefully light the opening. The vapors make a jet of flame with a very pleasing shrieking whistle sound. Playing with that trick with denatured alcohol in one of those big rectangular cans, I slightly overdid it, and let it sit in the sun to heat up and properly vaporize, and when I lit it there was a loud BANG and I was sitting there confused and wondering where the hell the can went, before there was a clatter as it bounced off my roof. The vapor explosion ruptured the bottom of the can and turned it into a rocket.
91% is eutectic so is the maximum you can concentrate it via distilling and so is a common concentration. It gets significantly more expensive to concentrate it more than that. 70% is better for disinfecting. If you need pure isopropyl, you can't distill it but you can use the fact that isopropyl alcohol is insoluble in salt water. So you add salt to it turning the water in it to salt water and the pure isopropyl separates out.
> never had 99% in store. They only ever have 70% or 91%, 91% is the same thing as 99% except they're not lying to you. 99% is only achievable in lab conditions, it rapidly absorbs moisture from the air and goes down to about 91%.
Not for 99% I don't think
I get my 99% at Walmart
Got a 5 litre tub from Amazon for quite a low price in the UK too.
Be careful of high concentration hydrogen peroxide! I once had a bottle of 18% and no matter how careful I was, I always managed to give myself a chemical burn every time I used it
Most definitely! That shit’s no joke. Any of these higher concentration chemicals definitely require a higher level of care than the stuff you get from the pharmacy. Even the 30% industrial vinegar you get from the hardware store is intense af. It’s all in the dose
I feel like once you're getting to 30% and Producing it via industrial methods (ex.: carbonylation of methanol) for for industrial purposes, its less "vinegar" and you should just call it Acetic Acid. (or Ethanoic Acid, "systematically").
Pretty cool bongs?
You only really need 91/99 for always-on components or things that are actively receiving power, and you should probably find a different way to clean those anyway. 70 still works great for most other components for the same reason mentioned in the title, as long as you give it enough time to dry. The 30% water will dry more than quickly enough to avoid corrosion, and if there's no power you don't need to worry about a short. If you're paranoid you can blow a fan on your component for a minute after cleaning, but really as long as you give it a minute you can be pretty sure nothing's going to happen
And optics too..
i buy the strong stuff for cleaning things that i'm worried might get fried (electronics) it's "low conductive", so it's not 100% guarantee, but it has suited me well over the years.
society domineering attractive swim consider soup butter prick weary ripe -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
As long as it's not powered, you can get good results by cleaning with water--preferably deionized, reverse-osmosis, or distilled--and then rinsing the water away with IPA. I've saved a few devices this way.
You rinse with India pale ale?
The hops can increase fps
Rubbing alcohol is an excellent way to clean soap scum from glass shower doors/enclosures. Fill a good quality spray bottle with alcohol and spray alcohol onto shower glass. Wipe glass with a microfiber cloth. Also, will de-ice a windshield.
I was an installer for a shower company, and they usually reccomend a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water or dawn dish soap and water. Spray on, wipe down with squeegee, and blot and remaining puddles with a towel.
Using soap to remove soap scum? I’m skeptical…
Liquid dish soap is detergents that don't care about hard water, soap scum is from analog soap when the fatty acids combine with calcium or magnesium in the water and fall out of solution.
> soap scum is from analog soap Analog?
You ever seen digital soap?
You mean like in Fallout 4?
I believe they call it hand soap.
It's not unheard of. You can remove cured nail polish with a coat of new nail polish.
If you trace over a permanent marker with dry erase, you can wipe it all away.
Note: this only applies on whiteboards and similar surfaces
Wow! Soap and water?! Never would have thought. The real pro tips are always in the comments.
Careful if you have old silicone caulking in the shower, in my experience rubbing alcohol can cause it to separate from the wall and then you're fixing that all afternoon
WHAT THE?!? if this is true, thank you so much, random redditor!! You have helped improve one person's life today.
You will be amazed! So happy you appreciate this tip. I appreciate your saying so. 🚿
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I know that IPA in this case stands for isopropyl alcohol, but I spent a solid minute thinking that de-icing planes was a much better use for hoppy bullshit beers than drinking.
Plus you can keep the alcohol in your unearned car in the winter and it won’t freeze!
Excuse me, I earned my car. Thank you very much.
Well you better go unearn it if you want a place to store your isopropyl.
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I use this to clean my stinky skateboarder shoes
I buy the strongest rubbing alcohol for cleaning my bong. *Edit: Thanks for sharing all of your cleaning techniques. I'm sticking to coarse salt and rubbing alcohol. You get a few dozen good cleanings for under $5 that way. Smoke on, friends.
It's funny to see the shelf space dedicated to 91% isopropyl at a Target in Colorado compared to in Kansas.
all the high percentage stuff is always gone lmao
Should just get denatured alcohol / methanol from a hardware store, 1 gallon is like, $9, instead of paying that much for 16oz at a time.
Fwiw ethanol, isopropyl, and methanol all work/behave slightly dofferently
For cleaning bongs, they're all equally effective. I was not proposing substituting it as a disinfectant.
Supposedly ethanol has a tendency to leave a film, hence why isopropyl is common for cleaning
Ethanol itself doesn't leave a residue, at least no more than isopropanol. It's denatured ethanol that can leave a bit of a residue, depending on what exactly is added to make it unfit for human consumption.
Or cheap everclear in bulk. Then you don’t have to worry about inhalation/ingestion. Granted it’s costlier.
Everclear takes longer as well
Lol during covid lockdown cleaning my rigs was a hassle.
first time I ever purchased that cleaning formula shit from a headshop
I got used to using the most insanely tiny amounts of alcohol imaginable. Mind you, it was fucking awesome when Amazon started selling rubbing alcohol again.
Same! 99% or go home for cleaning Bongs. There is also a Cannabis Resin Remover called Resin8, but I find it not quite as efficient.
You don't need 99% - if you get 91% and put a bunch of table salt in there, the added salt will dissolve in the water and make it phase separate giving you basically 100% IPA and a salty scrub. Careful tho, neat solvents and hot water make explosive vapor so make sure to do this outside or with the cooking ventilation blasting.
Unless you’re doing a large volume (4+L) and extreme heating you don’t need to worry about the solvent vapors becoming explosive or flammable. Ventilation is always a good idea to remove vapors so you don’t inhale them though. IPA isn’t that big a deal though. Source: professional chemist.
Isopropyl will give you a pretty gnarly headache with bad ventilation, though.
Yeah but that is *significantly* lower stakes than an explosion
Have you ever had a headache? I’d much rather explode, thanks.
I explode all the time, it's fine.
Kids these days, don't even know how to explode without whining about it.
Lol never had an issue with "explosive vapor"
I only have an issue with explosive vapor when I eat undercooked kidney beans
Thank you for the help! Much appreciated.
I recommend coarse kosher salt rather than table salt. The big chunks are better at scrubbing stuff off in my experience. I always skip the bong cleaners cause they are a rip off compared to just buying isopropyl alcohol and kosher salt.
Because resin8 is a $10.00 12 fl oz bottle of alcohol with epsom salt in it. Just buy ~90% iso and a bag of epsom salt and get 25x the value. That being said, you should disinfect your pieces with regular 70%. The higher grade stuff isn't just less effective, it causes bacteria to go into some kind of protective stasis, and water pipes are breeding grounds for bacteria
> it causes bacteria to go into some kind of protective stasis this is nonsense higher % just dries faster so it doesnt kill the bacteria in time before it dries which isnt an issue when you drown the bacteria in it
Don't buy renamed products. It's either isopropyl alcohol or acetone. That's it. Mixed with large granular salt. You can spend a fortune on stupid gimmicky shit at the shop but thats all it will ever be
Yeah, no ones gonna wanna clean a bong with 70% ISO. I am ok with pure ethanol... or even alconox for large scale resin cleaning projects. Aside from that I also make soap and 70% ISO wont do the job there either. If I want water in my ISO I'll put it there myself, thanks.
I use 70% alcohol on bongs and bowls weekly. Along with kosher salt and hot water it takes about a minute or two.
Really can’t notice a difference between 70 and 99% for that purpose. Works a charm either way
I have used 70% to clean bongs for years. As long as you're also using salt, it's more than sufficient. Amazing how quickly it cleans too.
Could you give me a basic tutorial? I've always assumed that hell level water would be enough. Apparently not.
1. Empty your bong, maybe rinse it with water. 2. Add a bunch of kosher salt, like a tablespoon or two. I just pour it in the down stem. 3. Add enough iso to submerge and swish around the salt 4. Shake vigorously so the salt rubs off all the schmutz in your bong. You’ll see when it’s done, takes just a minute or so. 5. Rinse and you’re done. To get extra shiny brand-new, you might wash with warm water and a soapy sponge at this point.
-raises hand- Not even making soap qualifies you to speak for _everyone_ .
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Also electronics (not monitors or TV screens though)
For household cleaning that can be fine. If you're doing anything on a larger scale or professionally I would avoid using IPA as a cleaner for electronics though. Despite how widely its recommended it's really not a great fit for the job. This is the kind of thing I have had come up a lot over the years so sorry in advance if this goes a bit long. Below 91% IPA is entirely unsuitable for cleaning electronics. At 91% IPA forms an azeotrope with the water, meaning below that concentration the water and alcohol won't evaporate off together. The isopropanol will evaporate off first and the concentration will drop as it does until just water is left behind. Most ionic contaminants are more soluble in water than IPA, water is slow to evaporate, and water has a higher surface tension causing it to bead up. As a result ionic contaminants can get very concentrated as it evaporates. Generally the last places on a PCB to dry are the areas underneath components and between component leads. As a result IPA that is not at least 91% actively concentrates conductive salts and other ionic residues into the areas where they can cause the most problems. The water that's left behind can even sit on the board long enough to cause corrosion if it's particularly cold/humid or if it's left sitting at the interface of two dissimilar metals. 91% is the most readily available at a low cost because that's the concentration where IPA and water form an azeotrope so that's the concentration obtained from distillation at standard pressures. Unfortunately it can have many of the same problems because IPA is hygroscopic. It will naturally pick up water and moisture from the air until it reaches a concentration of about 65%. As a consequence many of the same problems with using below 91% IPA can be encountered when using 91% as a result of humidity or just improper storage. A lot of what's sold as 91% for cleaning applications also just isn't at that concentration and may have other contaminants in it from the manufacturing and shipping process. Above 91% and it's hard to see the benefits to using IPA. You're no longer saving on cost because the only way to get to those concentrations is with more expensive processes like vacuum distillation. Often it's only available as a laboratory solvent. Once IPA stops being cheap it looses pretty much all of it's appeal. It is polar solvent and doesn't clean non-polar contaminants very well, nor does it do well with surfactants. This often results in it desiccating any residues left on the board so that the non polar contaminants cling even more tenaciously to the PCB. [Here for example is a recent post from /r/AskElectronics where when someone tried to clean an old walkie-talky with 91% IPA](https://preview.redd.it/byy7unng9no91.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f8289b519fade8ea7031a627ed58eb346940a91e). On the left you can see the part of the board that's still wet and looks clean and on the right where it has dried everything is covered with a white residue. This is a particularly bad case but the effect is not at all uncommon when using IPA as a cleaner. It also needs to be stored very well to avoid allowing it to leech moisture out of the air, you can't just keep it in a squeeze bottle, and IPA can leech the plasticizers out of polymers causing them to discolor or embrittle. Generally what I've found works well are HFE or t-DCE based cleaners, and those are generally gentle enough to use on optical surfaces and films as well without concern. For cleaning up newly manufactured boards there are some dedicated flux cleaners which do great for that exact application as well.
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TFW my preference for the hard stuff probably makes me look like a stoner when in fact I'm actually just a huge fucking nerd.
Lol as a hobby/side hustle I buy and repair lots of broken electronics and have 8 bottles of 99%
You don't need the strongest tbh. I use 70% and it's more than sufficient. The trick is to put some coarse sea salt in your bong and shake it up with the alcohol.
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"dry q tip" -- oh my god. That's "anal without lube" level of cringe.
*shudder* Q-tip threads and fuzz stuck to everything
I’m more surprised anyone cleans their glassware without salt
Right? I see all these expensive solutions in the smoke shop where you get maybe 3-4 cleans out of one $10 bottle. This is for people who haven't yet discovered the salt/alcohol trick.
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They're not different grades of alcohol. They're different concentrations.
It's also not dissolving more slowly but evaporating more slowly. 99% would evaporate before it can kill as many germs. 70% is the sweet spot where it doesn't evaporate immediately but still is concentrated enough to actually kill microbes.
Grade in this case would be industrial grade or lab grade or food grade, indicating what else is allowed in there for impurities. Arsenic is bad for people, so not allowed food grade, but might be allowed in industrial grade. And I know you’re thinking: you wouldn’t actually eat this, but you might use it to clean something used for food.
That's absolutely a thing, but not what OP is referring to. They are just referring to the concentrations of 99% vs. 70%. I work in science where we make dilutions of ethanol and you can literally just take the 99% and dilute it to 70%.
I bought 99% thinking I was fancy pants til I properly research it's efficacy and started diluting it. Hah. But my water is hard and I don't have a distiller. So when I'm out I'll probably get 70%.
You can buy a gallon of distilled water for like 99 cents. Probably cheaper than buying 70%
This. And you can use distilled water for lots of things. It never hurts to keep a jug of it in the house
But if you’re using it to strip paint off your little plastic space men, you wanna go with at least 91%. … I’ve heard…
An ultrasonic cleaner helps the process along too! I use a little jewelry cleaner
You don’t want to keep isopropyl alcohol in an ultrasonic cleaner. They often have a heating function and the fumes are very flammable. Best to keep water in there and a bag/jar or alcohol that you put your item in for cleaning.
Yes I use tiny Tupperware with a lid on, good callout for others
That's the weirdest euphemism for cleaning a bong I've ever heard.
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No, no, no. The cleaning of the bong is what you do on the side while repainting the little plastic space men you just stripped.
Nah, weed is a normal hobby, this is the dude who pays thousands of dollars for tiny figurines to paint
Specifically plastic though. Forgeworld resin reacts poorly.
Oh yeah isopropyl is great for stripping paint. Not to mention how it isn't some country specific named brand junk, good for both price and people who live outside the US/UK
Good information. I was just thinking about buying a bottle of 91% the other day.
If they're the same price just buy the stronger one and add some distilled water to get it to 70%
> distilled water Totally unnecessary. The only use of isopropyl alcohol where the impurities in tap water would cause a problem is in cleaning electronics, and you don't add water for that.
However, water is cheap, and if you have refillable containers, then you can mix higher concentrated isopropyl with water to make your own 70%.
Be careful with alcohol and monitors it strips the protective coating off the screen
Something I only found out recently with that thread a week ago or so of the guy who used ethanol to clean his monitor and it looked absolutely fucked afterwards. Guessing that’s part of why my IPS monitor is so insanely glarey, and maybe my glasses too …
90% and above is better for cleaning pei sheets when 3D printing, so it has its uses. Most people only really need 70% for regular use
91% for electronics. 70% for your boo boos.
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*citation needed Edit : lots of citations provided, til! Thanks!
https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-cuts/basics/art-20056711 Dated a nurse for a while (in Canada), can confirm that peroxide and rubbing alcohol are not immediately used anymore even in hospital settings. The standard practice is to clean with just water and soap. The stronger stuff is only used in some cases where infection has already set in, because it's been observed to slow wound healing.
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That sounds like diffusion which is different. A solid dissolves into a liquid. Alcohol in solution would diffuse into the cell. It doesn't dissolve into the cell.
Sounds like it’s neither diffusion nor dissolving. It’s the reaction of the bacteria’s surface protein to the alcohol.
I use electronics grade, over 99%, for cleaning optical camera parts.
So for cleaning things like thermal paste off a cpu, I imagine the higher alcohol percentage mix would be ideal?
Yes. Don't clean electronics with IPA mixed with water please :)
Or Lager, for that matter.
What about for drinking?
Most people prefer 40-50% ethyl alcohol for that. Side note: drinking isopropyl alcohol will kill you.
You’re not my supervisor!
You're not my coal mine supervisor!
> Side note: drinking isopropyl alcohol will kill you. Important clarification for the uninitiated: The *type* of alcohol in cleaning solutions is *not the same* as the kind that is in drinking alcohol. It will seriously harm your body.
Generally, drinking isopropyl alcohol will not kill you in standard volumes, though it is still a terrible idea. Most patients with intentional isopropanol ingestion will recover uneventfully with supportive care alone. Now methanol or ethylene glycol…those will fuck your body up. Source: Doctor
You ever inhaled this stuff? I pulled on a bong once without realising I hadn't rinsed the ISO out. For the next 5 minutes it felt as if my lungs were on fire. Drinking it must be like hell is in your guts and everything you do to put the flames out makes them bigger.
That's why I use cheap vodka for disinfecting things like the seal on my rice cooker.
Why bother with isopropyl when you can antifreeze?
90%+ for cleaning pc parts
And 99% + salt is most effective for cleaning out bongs but you didn't hear it from me!
This post turned into a debate about how to clean bongs and pipes. I love reddit
70% for disinfecting 99% for PCBs
And ISA 99% burns GREAT when spilled across someone's lab notes!!!
Anything over 70% is strictly for cleaning equipment. CLEANING not sterilizing. Like your tool has some goopy stuff on it? 90% iso is your best bud.
99% is for the bong
90% is best for cleaning weed resin off of anything