On Thursday, January 23, 2003, at 09:56 PM, Philip Stortz wrote: > NO, don't use any, any automatic dishwasher soap! most brands are > mostly lye, which is used to etch circuit boards by some companies! it > will likely cause eventual but delayed failure. surfactants are nice, > but with the way most dishwashers spray around the water will get to > the sticky parts, and the sticky stuff is usually sugar etc. which will > act as it's own surfactant. > > then again, there's really no need to use the dishwasher unless you are > especially lazy, it's not that hard to pour water into and out of the > keyboard manually. the only time i've ever washed keyboards in the > dishwasher was when i had 4 that had been outside and were full of > driveway gravel and dirt, but hopefully your keyboards are not nearly > that dirty. besides which, tap water is corrosive in some cities, more > and more in fact as many cities use less chlorine and more ammonia to > disinfect the water (chlorine is not a good thing to have in drinking > water, but i'm not sure ammonia is either). >
No brands of automatic dishwasher soap have any lye. Lye is the common name of sodium hydroxide and is forbidden in soap and detergent formulations for consumer use. It's too caustic and harmful to the skin alone. Ammonia is combined with chlorine chemically to form chloramine for disinfection in water treatment plants so ammonia doesn't exist in tap water by itself. All detergent formulations are mixtures of sodium phosphate, sodium carbonate, etc. and a detergent. The detergent maybe either a nonionic type or an anionic type detergent. The latter will generally be sodium lauryl sulfonate (an anionic detergent) and the former a polyoxyethylenenonylphenol (a nonionic detergent). There is of course a huge variety of soap and detergent formulations available but these are the common types. Both are good at cleaning keyboards in a home dishwasher although if I had a choice, I'd pick one that is based on a polyoxyethylenenonylphenol. In this case, there would in theory be less residue. OTOH all detergents promote rapid drainage of water so the difference could be trivial with adequate rinse water. If your obsessed like me, the final rinse would be deionized or distilled water before air drying. Eric Organic chemist who worked in soaps and detergents Note there is a third detergent form known as a cationic detergent and these are found in final rinses as a fabric softener and hair conditioners but you'd not pick those for a keyboard. -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
