On my way to work this afternoon I found a blue backed AWA P1T on the side of the road. The TV is in overall reasonable condition missing only 1 knob and 2 broken telescopic aerials. Unfortunately we had a little rain this morning and some of this rain got inside of the set. The TV is presently in the back office with its back off and sitting on some newspapers with a fan heater on the low setting pointed at it. The yoke on the CRT has a little bit of green corrosion on it now. The CRT is a 11TP4. I've pulled all the valves out to clean and it seems the pins didn't get wet. When I get it home I'll assess it for suitability to restore. Otherwise it may be good only for spare parts. Has anyone else had to deal with electronic equipment thats been wet before?

I deal with wet equipment regularly. Trouble is its usually a phone or uhf radio. The SMD's and close track spacing usually mean its fatal. If there is any evidence of moisture ingress I wont touch it.

Older gear, such as your telly and radios seem to survive better as there is room around components to get some cleaner and compressed air into it.

I have been known to throw an entire chassis in the sink from time to time. The only hazard there is water getting into transformer windings.

Grab some contact cleaner/lubricant and give all the connectors, switches and whatever else you think needs it a good drenching, followed by some low pressure compressed air to dry it all out. WD40 will work, but it leaves a residue and can be conductive. This would be OK as a first step.

As long as it hasnt been wet for too long, then stuff like IF coils will be OK'. You have done the right thing by getting a heater onto it.

I think you will be able to save it.


Ben

I don't think the moisture will be a problem once the set has had a chance to dry out. I had an old 1992 14" CRT monitor that was sitting outside waiting for me to haul it to the dump. Three or four months of exposure to sub-tropical weather (frequent rain, hail and high humidity) later, and I decided to plug it in and see how well it worked. To my surprise, it worked just like it had before I had dumped it outside!

Chris

Moisture is a funny thing and with patience you can get shot of it without doing any lasting damage.

Every year I pull down the server that hosts this website (and those that sit in the rack with it) and completely strip the machines down and wash everything except the hard discs, power supplies and DVD drawers in piping hot tap water to get rid of the dust that builds up over the time. To prevent any danger of damaging components it is just a matter of removing the motherboard's battery and waiting 30 minutes for the condensers to discharge. The trick is making sure every single scrap of water has evaporated before putting the machine back into service and as I mentioned before, that just requires patience. I use hot water because it evaporates quicker than cold water and the job is done in the middle of summer so the sun's power dries the parts out in less than a day.

Whilst this may seem like cruel and unusual punishment for a computer to go through, it is a good way to get rid of the dust build-up and stop the machines overheating.

So next Christmas when this site isn't accessible for a long time, you can guess as to the reason why - I will have the apron on and servers out.

A lot of the TV's in my collection have been subjected to the weather and electrically haven't suffered any harm once they have been allowed to dry out. Cases suffer much more from water exposure unless made from plastic. Chipboard and water don't mix!

Don't use compressed air to dry it out unless the pressure is very low. You risk driving moisture into places it cannot easily escape. Just let the TV sit in a nice dry warm environment for a couple of days and it will be fine. The P1's are tough little sets.

The corrosion on the yoke was probably already there before the TV was rained on. I've seen the same on my P1's, AWA used a rubber ring between the yoke housing and coils. The rubber breaks down and becomes corrosive.

I keep a bottle of silica gel to dry out thumb drives that have gone through the washing. Never had one that didn't work again, with all files intact.

Thanks guys for your input.
I think I may now have a go at restoring it.

Chris, how did you go with your P1?

Yeah actually I have washed boards at times

as above tranniy IF coils of coarse are more things you dont want water in

give it time to dry out naturally, throughly is usually the best idea...water has to evaporate sooner or later
(its what leaves that might be the problem)
warmer dry environment helps of course

have fun with it mate...and even as parts its always good to have

I've barely done any work on my AWA P1Q! It's been sitting on the shelf as I've been working on my larger sets. I'll get to it one day though.

Chris