Rinsing components with tap water

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Grelko

Well-known member
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
699
Location
Pennsylvania
I'm wondering if this is safe?

I scrape the components off the boards with a hammer/chisel and put them in a bucket.

I put tap water in a bucket and swised them around, and rinsed them through a colander.

I used my hands to take the pieces out, It only took about half an hour. (including the tiny broken pieces that went through the colander.)

Should I be worried about anything? I washed my hands with soapy water afterwards.

Nothing should have dissolved since it was just tap water, but I'm worried about any of the tiny pieces of MLCCs (or nickel, copper etc.) that I was picking out with my wet hands.

Edit - is there any worry about metal toxicity from this? I didn't get any water in my mouth or eyes, just on my hands.

Edit - added
 
I actually got myself worried enough that I called the poison control center.

The guy asked if I had a rash or anything where I was touching the metals, I said no. He said there's nothing to worry about, since it was a 1 time thing. I told him that it happened an hour ago.

I do have a pinched nerve in my neck that makes me feel worried about things a lot lately.

I took a shower and still feel worried, so I'm going to call my Dr. in the morning, to see if I can get a metal toxicity test.

If any of you guys, that have been working with citcuit boards for many years, can explain if what I did in my first post was safe or not, please let me know.

Edit - It would be the equivalant of grinding up components, putting them on a shaker table, going through them with your bare hands. Then washing your hands off afterwards.
 
If you are merely washing complete mainstream components in water I wouldn't worry too much. That given I would recommend that you use latex gloves for doing this just to be covered.

Don't be worrying or calling people, you really don't want to be throwing yourself into their line of sight.
 
anachronism said:
If you are merely washing complete mainstream components in water I wouldn't worry too much.

Does that include any MLCCs that were probably crushed into powder while I was scraping the boards?

I normally use gloves if I'm using any chemicals, but I didn't think it would do much, since it was just tap water.
 
The components of mlc are readily available online and the metals are in metal form not salt form. Remember you're using normal tap water here and you were in and out of the water for only 30 minutes.

If you were swishing them around in an acid solution then you'd have more cause for concern.

Still, I'd use gloves as I mentioned but I don't believe you need to worry.

Jon
 
anachronism said:
The components of mlc are readily available online and the metals are in metal form not salt form. Remember you're using normal tap water here and you were in and out of the water for only 30 minutes.

If you were swishing them around in an acid solution then you'd have more cause for concern.

Still, I'd use gloves as I mentioned but I don't believe you need to worry.

Jon

I wasn't even thinking about them being in metal form "not salt form" at the time, I'm not really sure why it bothered me so much. Basically anything that puts stress on my neck can start to make me feel worried about things, when I start getting tired and I was carrying a 60 pound bucket of components around. Plus lifting it to dump pieces into the colander to rinse.

Thank you for the help.
 
I would venture a guess that the greatest potential health hazard of your process Is inhaling some PCB/MLCC dust in to your lungs... you should probably use a respirator when "scraping"

-Artūrs
 
Hi Grelko,

It is always good to be carefull. But you don't have to worry about this. I am a chemist myself, so I know what I am talking about. The tiny particles you may have in suspension are still to big to penetrate the skin. With only tap water you create a suspension and not a solution. In a solution metal atoms become metal ions. Ions can penetrate te skin, the toxity depends on the type of metal that is in solution and the rate it can penetrate (depends on the diameter of the ion). In your case just a wash with soap is ok, and if there were ions in solution the concentration would be very low. Still I would recommend gloves next time to stay carefull with everything you do. My worst case was that I was cleaning leadoxide from lead metal using acitic acid, I was wearing gloves but one finger had a hole in it. I noticed when I was about 5 minutes with my hand in solution, I'm still alive and my IQ is still ok, I think... :?
 
niks neims said:
I would venture a guess that the greatest potential health hazard of your process Is inhaling some PCB/MLCC dust in to your lungs... you should probably use a respirator when "scraping"

-Artūrs

Yes that is very treu! I use a dust free box and still lung protection when I am scraping, a bit overkill maybe, but you never can be too careful if it comes to airborne particles.
 
archeonist said:
niks neims said:
I would venture a guess that the greatest potential health hazard of your process Is inhaling some PCB/MLCC dust in to your lungs... you should probably use a respirator when "scraping"

-Artūrs

Yes that is very treu! I use a dust free box and still lung protection when I am scraping, a bit overkill maybe, but you never can be too careful if it comes to airborne particles.

Archeonist,

Please explain/describe what a "dust free box" is. Is this some sort of fume hood for dust? Do you have any pictures of it?

Thank you,
James
 
cosmetal said:
archeonist said:
niks neims said:
I would venture a guess that the greatest potential health hazard of your process Is inhaling some PCB/MLCC dust in to your lungs... you should probably use a respirator when "scraping"

-Artūrs

Yes that is very treu! I use a dust free box and still lung protection when I am scraping, a bit overkill maybe, but you never can be too careful if it comes to airborne particles.

Archeonist,

Please explain/describe what a "dust free box" is. Is this some sort of fume hood for dust? Do you have any pictures of it?

Thank you,
James

Yes I have, it is just a simple box I made from thin wood plate, tape, a plastic window, two gloves and two plastic bags. It is fully air tight so all the dust stays in and all pieces that normally fly everywhere stay in too.
 

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niks neims said:
I would venture a guess that the greatest potential health hazard of your process Is inhaling some PCB/MLCC dust in to your lungs... you should probably use a respirator when "scraping"

-Artūrs

Thanks for all of your input guys. I figure I'm ok then. It must have been a mix between... pinched nerve, carrying that heavy bucket, I was so busy yesterday that I didn't eat in about 8 hours so my stomach was starting to hurt, I was getting tired since it was almost 2 Am and had a stupid migraine headache starting up.

I was so focused on finally getting to work on material, I must have thought that's what was making me feel like crud.

I was thinking about the MLCC dust a while back. I finished up most of the boards I had left, so I'm done scraping them.

Edit - I could smell the metal from the components most of the time I was rinsing them off, so that could have gotten me worried also.

From now on I was going to either cherry pick then take the boards to the scrap yard, or use this process. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=11064&p=108047&hilit=depopulating+acid#p107848

archeonist said:
Hi Grelko,

It is always good to be carefull. But you don't have to worry about this. I am a chemist myself, so I know what I am talking about. The tiny particles you may have in suspension are still to big to penetrate the skin. With only tap water you create a suspension and not a solution. In a solution metal atoms become metal ions. Ions can penetrate te skin, the toxity depends on the type of metal that is in solution and the rate it can penetrate (depends on the diameter of the ion). In your case just a wash with soap is ok, and if there were ions in solution the concentration would be very low. Still I would recommend gloves next time to stay carefull with everything you do. My worst case was that I was cleaning leadoxide from lead metal using acitic acid, I was wearing gloves but one finger had a hole in it. I noticed when I was about 5 minutes with my hand in solution, I'm still alive and my IQ is still ok, I think... :?


Yeah, it was REALLY bothering me, thinking that something could have gotten absorbed into my skin because my tap water smells like chlorine sometimes.

archeonist said:
if there were ions in solution the concentration would be very low.

That's good to know, but I'm not going to rinse them off anymore, since it bothered me that much.

I'm glad you're ok also.
 
archeonist said:
cosmetal said:
archeonist said:
niks neims said:
I would venture a guess that the greatest potential health hazard of your process Is inhaling some PCB/MLCC dust in to your lungs... you should probably use a respirator when "scraping"

-Artūrs

Yes that is very treu! I use a dust free box and still lung protection when I am scraping, a bit overkill maybe, but you never can be too careful if it comes to airborne particles.

Archeonist,

Please explain/describe what a "dust free box" is. Is this some sort of fume hood for dust? Do you have any pictures of it?

Thank you,
James

Yes I have, it is just a simple box I made from thin wood plate, tape, a plastic window, two gloves and two plastic bags. It is fully air tight so all the dust stays in and all pieces that normally fly everywhere stay in too.

Sweet!

I have a depopulation station that I made where I use my pneumatic air chisel to "wack" everything off. The "wacked items" hit a backboard/chute and end up in a 5 gal. plastic bucket under the workstation.

I built it - tried it once - worked great - but haven't used it since the first time because of the dust. Even wearing an N95 dust mask, I didn't want the dust in my refining space (10' x 20' storage unit). Sucked up what dust that did appear with my trusty Dirt Devil hand vac. But, I want to contain the dust flow better.

Thanks - you got my mind working on some mods for my station.

Peace,
James
 
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