[rescue] Rescued Sun servers, now what?!

[Robert Darlington]

I tend to use compressed air from a regular air compressor.  The trick with
compressed air is to not let the fans spin.   They're generators.  Spin em
10x faster than they normally go and they dump 120 volts back into your
circuit that normally supplies 12!    Just be careful.

-Bob

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 8:36 PM, der Mouse <mouse at rodents-montreal.org>wrote:

> >> 3. Is it safe to vacuum the servers periodically with a regular
> >> vacuum brush or how should they be kept clean?  I have a lot of dust
> >> where I live.
> >  Don't do this!  Vacuum cleaners can produce a great deal of static
> >  charge at the attachment end,
>
> Q: What's the difference between a belt-driven vacuum cleaner and a van
> de Graff generator?
>
> A: Not much.
>
> That said, while you probably don't want to use a "regular vacuum
> brush", it is possible to vacuum computers out reasonably safely.  Use
> the vacuum to generate airflow and to scarf up airborne dust; don't use
> it to get the dust off things, not directly.  When I want to vacuum out
> a computer, I hold the vacuum nozzle in my hand, with my hand
> projecting past the nozzle, and make sure both I and the computer's
> frame stay grounded (I usually leave the power cord plugged in and
> either turn off the hard power switch, if there is one, or plug it into
> a dead outlet, if not).  Removing dust from parts, if not done as a
> side-effect of airflow, is done with my own compressed air generator,
> the one that produces short intermittent bursts and is powered by
> adenosine triphosphate.
>
> > Use a can of compressed air.
>
> If you can find one.  I've never seen one; the cans that are marked as
> compressed air generally aren't.  Look carefully and you'll usually
> find they contain some halogenated hydrocarbon, not air.  (If you're
> worried about different gases acting differently, use compressed
> nitrogen: uniform and atmospherically totally innocuous.  Why nobody's
> selling cans of compressed nitrogen instead of what they are selling I
> don't know - nor why the truth-in-advertising folks aren't cracking
> down on them for misleadingly claiming they hold compressed air.)
>
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