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#1
08-02-2011, 08:07 PM
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Dry ice sandblasting for chassis and parts
Has anyone here ever tried this for chassis cleaning or paint stripping?
It is fascinating as it freezes the crud on contact and blows it away at 80psi or so and then evaporates leaving only the crud on the floor. It would be a sizeable $ installation for anyone to try it at home. Let's leave any safety considerations and questions for later. The cleaning would be obvious but the ability to shoot in to tube sockets is interesting. Would ink on cans survive? Would transformer paper insulation survive? There is a demo on the internet where crud on an egg is stripped and the egg is fine. All a process of pressure I presume after testing. I did pick up the Moto 7" Chinese from another thread and it is a perfect candidate for this. 62 years of dust, grease and nicotine. The bakelite is great and some Novus #2 will take care of that. I did call a local contractor to talk to them about this. Hopefully they will give me a demo. Stay tuned, Dave A
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“Once you eliminate the impossible...whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Sherlock Holmes. Last edited by Dave A; 08-02-2011 at 08:10 PM. 
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#2
08-02-2011, 09:08 PM
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Dry ice blasting was used at the NADEP (aviation Depot) at NAS Norfolk to strip conformal coating off of circuit boards and cable assemblies in for rework. It stripped the varnish-like coating off of the boards, but left resistor color codes intact. The key is the constant movement of the gun (nicknamed "the torch") and the proximity of the gun to the object being blasted. The dry ice beads were tiny, and were gone within milliseconds after doing their thing. The shields protecting the guy operating the unit were polycarbonate, and I don't recall them being abraded much either. Really neat stuff - I've also seen it used to clean ABS plastic fan shrouds of grease and dirt.
In the late 80's/early 90's, environmentally safe solutions were the sought after technology, for sure. In 1991, a janitor in our building on base developed a novel hazmat disposal system, got a bonus from Uncle Sam, and gave up the patent rights as well. IIRC, the bonus was nearly $40K, about 1/10th of the dollar savings actually realized by the government. Cheers,
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Brian USN RET 22YRS (Avionics/Cal) CET-Consumer Repair and Avionics ('88) "Capacitor Cosmetologist since '79" When fuses go to work, they quit!
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