Six months ago, I lost my job as a professional DJ so I threw my mixing board in the closet along with the special PCI card required to hook it up to my PC. Now that I am getting back in this biz, I went to pull everything out of storage and inspect it. The mixer is fine but somehow the PCI card, which is irreplaceable, got badly corroded. I used Naval Jelly to remove the corrosion from the PCI interface and the tops and sides of the connectors on the card but I am concerned about the solder points, joints on the connectors, insides of the connectors and other hard to reach places. Should I be worried about the remaining rust? Is there a way to get in those tight little spaces or is the card a loss? I hope the card is salvageable as it was quite expensive.
At work to remove shellac and rust from solder points before I rework/repair we use a glass fibre brushes or sometimes brass bristle brushes (much softer) to clean up. Does it work as it is? If it does I'd be hesitant to clean further in case you inadvertently damage something else. If you could post a macro picture of the board I could give you better advice. Welcome to HWF!
Unfortunately, I am not allowed to post pics as this card is a prototype (hence the irreplaceable part). I haven't plugged the card in yet as I am afraid of damaging my Mac.
Hehe, fair enough (you can pm me a pic if you like - i work primarily in the fuel industry now so am most unlikely to be interested in the details of it) But if it really is that important you need to get it to an electrical engineer to give it the all clear.
