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I didn't find this in the article, so: You can "recharge" silical gel by baking in the oven at 120 C for a couple of hours. If you do, be careful to remove the
by nvader 2y ago
I didn't find this in the article, so:
You can "recharge" silical gel by baking in the oven at 120 C for a couple of hours. If you do, be careful to remove the casing before you do, unless it is heat safe.
I have a small collection of oven safe dessicant packs that I keep on hand for emergency drying electronics.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JohnFen 2y agoI use a food dehydrator for this, but the principle is the same.
- nvader 2y agoWhen my last phone took an unsanctioned swim, my research suggested that a food dehydrator is a last resort. It risks forcing water vapour further into the electronics of the system, rather than encouraging it to move out. I did find a clever solution online that tried to induce mechanical suction on your phone to force the vapour out, but it was too expensive for a one off use. In the end I had to resort to the food dryer anyway, after the silica gel failed to work.
- JohnFen 2y agoI've never used it for drying wet electronics. The couple of times I've dunked my phone, I've just let it air-dry for a couple of days and it's been good. I use silca gel for storing 3D printing filament and long-term clothes storage.
- nemonemo 2y agoThis sounds like a great idea, but how do you keep it from being "drained" or hydrated?
- reverendsteveii 2y agoother people are suggesting the microwave rather than the oven. to my mind it seems very possible that you don't keep them from hydrating, you just dehydrate them on-demand.
- mrob 2y agoI store mine in an plastic box with airtight lid designed for food storage.
- nvader 2y agoPrecisely this! Even so, I refresh them just before using them. TIL about the microwaving trick. I'll have to find out more about it. My concern would be the gel beads popping from internal pressure.
- NoahKAndrews 2y agoIf they're not getting hydrated slowly, they're not serving any purpose. The whole point is that water goes into them instead of whatever you're trying to keep dry.
- mrob 2y agoIf you're keeping them on hand for drying electronics in emergencies then you need to store them somewhere airtight.
- filoleg 2y agoI think the grandparent comment meant keeping unhydrated during storage (for future uses of emergency drying electronics), not while it is being actively used for its intended purpose.
- wildzzz 2y agoImmediately take them out of the oven and store in the smallest airtight container you have. Obviously they'll absorb the humidity in the container and whatever is introduced anytime you open it. Ideally, keep them in containers that have an excellent seal and minimal internal volume like quality ESD bags.
- jchw 2y agoI use dessicants for 3D printing. I've heard you can dry them out safely by just microwaving them for a few seconds. I wonder if that's good enough.
- bayindirh 2y agoYou can get the ones with indicators, which change color according to how saturated they are. You can check the color to see whether it's time to microwave them, and whether they are dry once you microwaved them.
- abracadaniel 2y agoThe indicator is supposed to be toxic though. I’ve always seen warnings to never reuse that kind.
- adrian_b 2y agoIf the indicator is cobalt chloride, which is blue when dry and pale pink (possibly almost invisible) when wet, that can be toxic or carcinogenic when ingested in great quantities, or when you inspire a lot of dust of it, but it is not dangerous to handle when in compact form. It is certainly not something like a poison, where small quantities can have harmful effects, at least not for most people. Like nickel, cobalt can cause allergies in some people, in which case repeated exposure can have serious effects even in small quantities, in those humans who are sensitive to it.
- bgnn 2y agoI use them in my car against condensation. The instructions on tge cover say 3 minutes at 700W in the microwave.
- Graziano_M 2y agoYou can just microwave them too, on low power. It's much, much faster and power efficient.
- mrob 2y agoAlso much harder to control. Oven drying has the advantage that you can set the temperature so there's no risk of overheating anything.
- geor9e 2y agoI do microwave. It's pretty easy to not burn, just undershoot it - 10 seconds, see how hot it is, another 10 seconds. Once it's blazing hot shake it back and forth to get the steam off. If it's the colored kind (white when good, pink/blue when full of water) it's easy to tell when it's good. Takes about 30 seconds all together - I recharge my dessicant packs before every use. Of course, people are welcome to spend hours doing the oven method if they want. I just don't personally see an advantage, unless you have an industrial amount of packs to recharge.
- lazide 2y agoFYI, but some desiccant coloring agents are cancerous
- hilbert42 2y agoIt's cobalt chloride—the same stuff that used to be used on those little weather indicators where a little man or woman would pop out to indicate whether it was going to be wet or dry. They usually had a spot of blotting paper about 2cm round soaked in it. Cobalt chloride is blue when dry and pink when damp. All ionic cobalt salts are toxic so cobalt chloride is not used as an indicator in silica gell packaged for use with food. That said, it's an excellent indicator for telling whether your silica gell is still working or not.
- 2y ago
- neilv 2y agoCan someone speak authoritatively on how safe/unsafe it is to put the silica gel packets with cobalt chloride indicator into the oven? (By default, I've been assuming it's not sufficiently safe.)
- ender341341 2y agoThere's silica gel you can buy without cobalt chloride that I use for storing my 3d print filament.
- neilv 2y agoI also do this. I'm wondering whether anyone needs to be warned about cobalt chloride, or it's innocuous.
- adrian_b 2y agoCobalt chloride decomposes only at extremely high temperatures and it melts only at very high temperatures (726 °C), which could not be reached, in any case not before all water in the silica gel would be converted to steam and it would be eliminated. Even when no water is left, it is unlikely that the beads with cobalt chloride could absorb enough microwave energy to be heated at very high temperatures. So by itself cobalt chloride could not cause any problem. However, I have no idea whether the cobalt chloride is not mixed with some organic binder, to make it stick to the silica gel beads, which could burn in the oven, though that is also unlikely to happen before all water is removed from the gel, allowing an increase in temperature above the boiling temperature of water. By using low microwave power and short time, so that no boiling of the contained water should be seen, it should be possible to dry even beads with cobalt chloride.
- eternityforest 2y agoAre there studies on whether it sheds dust and under what conditions? Also, where are people even still getting cobalt chloride gel? Do they still make it? I sure wouldn't buy any. I wouldn't even buy the orange to green stuff by choice these days for anything DIY, it's still too toxic when mechanical hygrometers are cheap.
- imglorp 2y agoPractical details about the types of desiccant beads and how to dry them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tHInlFfMcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tHInlFfMcM
- Workaccount2 2y agoYou are better off soaking the wet electronics in isopropyl alcohol then trying to dry them in a bag full of desiccant. One of the things that kills wet electronics is the dried residue that is left behind, creating shorts. Alcohol will wash away the water and leave no residue after it dries. If the device has ink or glue you'd like to try to preserve, deionized water will mostly work too.
- noname120 2y agoWhy not demineralized water instead of alcohol?
- Numerlor 2y agoAlcohol would dry up faster, demineralised water will have more time to dissolve and redeposit particles. Though you have to be careful with alcohol as it can destroy some plastics
- lightedman 2y agoAt my work any electronics that have had a water bath or flux-added rework will get an ultrasonic alcohol bath and then a forced air drying run. Alcohol is just so damned good for so much.
- wkat4242 2y agoI totally agree though my use of it is pretty different ;)
- dieselgate 2y agoWhat percentage alcohol is used?
- arcmechanica 2y agousually 99%
- lightedman 2y ago
- moebrowne 2y agoThey can also be died at much lower temperatures, it just takes a lot longer. I dry mine by leaving them on top of a computer at ~35C for a week, I believe the air flow from the fans is important. The color indicating ones are useful so you can see when they are dry.
- timerol 2y agoAt what ambient humidity do you do this? Where I am we are having a dry day at 45% humidity today. Tomorrow it'll be over 90%, and it'll stay between 50% and 90% through the weekend. I would expect that you need a more consistently dry environment for this to work