Repairing water damaged power tools?

Road_Warrior · 25-03-2010, 10:36 PM

Perth's Monday afternoon uberstorm (TM) punished my backyard as well as flooded my shed. The mess in the back yard I couldn't care less about; I can clean it up. I am rather dirty (pun, hurr hurr) about some of my electrical tools that got inundated in my shed. Like my little arc welder that was still brand new:

I pulled the cover off it to see how much it got flooded; as you can see by the waterline, it was pretty much drowned.

Question is, can it be saved, or is it a bin job? I thought if I cleaned all the crap out and dried it right out it might be ok but...I'm not sure if I should or if it is worth it.

kenz · 25-03-2010, 10:51 PM

It'd be worth a try. One of the guys at work dropped a drill in the pool once when he was doing some pool fence or something and he pulled it apart and left it to dry out and it was fine again

S3SR · 25-03-2010, 10:56 PM

my nokia was at the bottom of a river for a few hours... 6 weeks later it works still

id give it a quick blow with the compressor, but as far as i know there is going to be a bit of current flowing through there.... test your safety switch first hahaha

1970XW351 · 25-03-2010, 10:58 PM

I'd give it a go... Just blow all the crap out of it with the air comp first and maybe spray something around in there to try to stop anything oxidising too much (maybe silicone spray or similar and then blow out really well again with air??) and let it sit for a good couple weeks in a nice warm dry spot. quite a few years ago I heard of someone who had a party and someone decided to p!55 on their stereo. They just sat it in a wardrobe for a couple months to dry out and it worked okay after that...

wulos · 25-03-2010, 10:59 PM

It should be possible to salvage the welder, just be sure that it is perfectly clean, AND dry before switching it on. Tis worth giving it a quick blow over with compressed air, & a bit of a clean down with some contact cleaner spray, especially over the electronic control module, and reostat control on front, then leave it sit to dry out properly in the sun for at least a week
If you was over on the East Cost, I'd offer to whack it in one of the drying ovens at work for a few days.

GTpilot · 25-03-2010, 11:07 PM

yeah as said above, let it all dry out thoroughly, should be right.
could even use a little wd40/RP7 on any rotational/ morotised tools such as drills etc just a very light spray should be enough to disperse water and prevent rust.

sgt_doofey · 25-03-2010, 11:57 PM

I've had water poured on my laptop courtesy of my little nephew whilst it was turned on. I simply reached over, turned it off, pulled all that I could apart from it, left it a day or so to dry out and it is still going over a year later without any troubles.

schmidty · 26-03-2010, 12:14 AM

Hit it with a can of CRC Lectra Clean. It's for cleaning electrical contacts and good for cleaning and drying bad connections. Brilliant stuff. I used to use it when i my power tools got drenched in the rain.

Road_Warrior · 26-03-2010, 12:30 AM

Thanks chaps. I might give it a second chance on life then.

irish2 · 26-03-2010, 06:15 PM

The welder should be fine if cleaned properly. We have some of those cig weld welders at work however and have had numerous issues with them. They are very cheap however so replacement shouldn't be much of a stretch.

FGII-XR6 · 26-03-2010, 06:41 PM

cleant it thoroughly then drown it in metho leave to dry a few weeks and it will be fine . the metho displaces the water and dries faster and stops corosion

ea90gl · 26-03-2010, 07:19 PM

should be fine like many have mentioned, I stupidly left my angle grinder in a wheelbarrow uncovered. Got some real heavy rains out of nowhere and completely forgot about the grinder. Discovered it at the bottom of a pretty much full barrow, pulled it out and let dry for about a week. Its still working to this day and its been about 6 months. Electrical appliances and electronics only usually get affected by water only while running/being operated (also from moisture and corrosion on terminals etc but but this happens gradually and as mentioned products that displace moisture can be used) because water creates a bridge of very little electrical resistence between conductors hence creating a short circuit - if you have no current flowing nothing blows, once current is flowing (obviously when in use) things go bang

**GasoLane** · 27-03-2010, 05:17 PM

Bugger fixing them, get the insurance company to buy a new ones !

Road_Warrior · 28-03-2010, 11:54 PM

Well I left it out in the sun for a day or so to dry right out, then blew all the crap out with compressed air and doused everything in CRC. Put it all back together, plugged it in and gave it a whirl - was as if it had never even seen water! So all is good