$1,000 Spray Makes Gadgets Waterproof 278
Rio writes "A new $1,000 spray claims to protect notebook computers, iPods, cell phones and other electronic gadgets from liquid, making them completely waterproof, a Local6.com report says. A creator of the technology said it could be used for emergency first-responders, bio-medical devices and historic preservation." This might be a bit of a flashback from last year.
Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Use it to send an email instead. I wonder if the cell towers down there have 3G or EDGE?
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Let me introduce you to the sea floor.
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They tower over the ocean floor, don't they? Okay, how about "Cell Columns"? Or "Cell Structures"? Maybe "Cell Network Nodes"?
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Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Your lack of relativistic perspective is cute.
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
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I always wanted to make an iPhone call from 1000 feet deep. Of course, that big air thingy sticking in my mouth is kind of a hinderance, but go technology!
Just be careful with the underwater aliens [imdb.com] :)
Not to spoil a good joke, but why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, that big air thingy sticking in my mouth is kind of a hinderance, but go technology!
You can take that out though and talk for a bit (as long as you are breathing out). You can even breathe in if you let the regulator flow directly under your mouth (a required skill to be certified to dive)...
You'd not be very intelligible, but you could speak.
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Regulators don't flow air until there is (slight) negative pressure...
Re:Not to spoil a good joke, but why not? (Score:5, Informative)
Regulators don't flow air until there is (slight) negative pressure...
normally, yes, however they have a purge button on them that overrides this and forces air to flow, quite useful for clearing them out, or using the regulator to inflate other things, or in case of a malfunction of some form.
During training to become SCUBA certified you remove the regulator from your mouth, hold the purge button, and breathe the air as it passes your mouth. This is a required skill as it will allow you to breathe even if there is some form of equipment failure.
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Just curious, don't you breath in water when you try to breath "as it passes your mouth"?
Re:Not to spoil a good joke, but why not? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes you do. The trick is to position your tongue so that it touches the top of your mouth as you breath in carefully. This stops the water from going straight to the back of your throat and causing a dangerous coughing fit.
You don't breath in too much water, really no worse than the first breath or two from a snorkel you just purged (where you use the same tongue technique to prevent coughing).
You learn this technique so that you can breath from a regulator that is in free flow which can happen when the diaphragm in the regulator fails. Normally you would try to fix the free flow under water (there's a couple of easy tricks you can try) but if that doesn't work you need to know this technique. In addition to sipping air from the regulator you would also theoretically be ascending to the surface as fast as you can safely since you'll quickly run out of air.
Re:Not to spoil a good joke, but why not? (Score:5, Funny)
I can imagine one good phone call you might make:
"Heblblblblblbp!"
Re:Not to spoil a good joke, but why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're right. There's no way a normal, sensitive touch screen would work underwater at pressure (more than 10 feet below the surface).
What would be cool is some sort of underwater keyboard you could use to text each other. While you could theoretically communicate with Morse Code (tapping on your tank) it would be very difficult since it would be based on timing (impossible to hold a tone). Or you could learn sign language which would also be very difficult if you want to have anything like a conversation.
Seriously, any investors out there: if you make something like a waterproof keyboard with a built-in LCD screen (similar to some existing gaming keyboards) that could communicate to other keyboards scuba divers would buy it, probably at significant profit to you.
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Part of scuba training is learning some universal sign language (like 'going up', 'going down', 'follow me', 'out of air', etc). But to learn more advanced sign language would take quite a bit of effort.
Being able to send a text message would be nice when there's a disagreement about something (like "I want to go over there to look at something" and your diving partner wants to say "No, it's too dangerous because of currents"). I doubt this would happen often though. It would also be nice on decompression d
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
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You mean an iCall.
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
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damn skippy
I use mine to pick up women. All the good lines right at my finger tips, plus I can stalk^H^H^H^H er get their home address to drive them home afterwards.
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but what do I do when, after my 19th vente caramel mocchiado, I need to call 911 to have my heart defibrillated and the "cool" people still haven't noticed me conspicuously ignoring my iPhone?
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ventI caramel mAcchiaTo
Man oh man I can tell you don't actually have an iPhone.
Re:Awesome. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget to install the special 1000 ft antenna (the iTenna) on your iPhone since microwaves have a hard time traveling through water.
Underwater telephony (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Underwater telephony (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people don't realize, a Faraday cage [wikipedia.org] doesn't need to be made of metal, it only needs to be made of a conducting material. Water (especially salt water) is a pretty good conductor. The only RF which can pass transparently through water has wavelengths thousands of km long [wikipedia.org]. So instead most underwater communication is done via cables or acoustically.
Re:Water is NOT a conductor (Score:5, Funny)
Better take care it's a non-soluble computer then! :-)
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Informative)
Hate to say it but 3G (1900MHz) is microwave.
Re:Awesome. (Score:4, Informative)
3G isn't tied to any particular frequency. IIRC, AT&T is in the process of moving all of their towers to operate at 850 MHz because the range per mW is better. They've been working on that for some time. That includes 3G coverage.
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That depends on your definition of microwave. 900 MHz is in the microwave region according to here [wikipedia.org], here [reference.com], here [spacecom.com], and others. I realize some definitions start at 1 GHz. Regardless, attention in water is still great at 900 MHz (degree of attenuation being dependent on the conductivity of the water). Also, note that the iPhone cellular/wireless, according to Apple, may operate at various frequencies between 850 and 2100 MHz.
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Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths ranging from 1 mm to 1 m, or frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz.
Woops.
Re:Awesome. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding, or are you missing the point of a post on purpose, so that you can passionately pursue your favorite off-topic discussion?
It just so happens that I started out as a Physicist, so upon reading the GGP post I found it very amusing that its author did not seem to realize that most of communication devices are on or around the microwave part of the spectrum and would thus have some familiar properties (like water absorption). I do remember that some books tell you microwaves start at 1m, while others at 30cm, but this is totally besides the point. Even if you agree that you are not talking about microwaves, but near-microwave radio waves it is still true that you will find near-microwave properties. You see, in most areas of physics (except quantum) you don't usually find discontinuities.
To go back to your specific problem with my post, I do not consider Wikipedia an authoritative source, and I certainly do not conduct research by reading wikipedia. However, how do you propose I post about a pretty simple fact on slashdot? Do I present my credentials and claim myself an authority? Do I cite (MLS of course) 1st year Physics books from my library? Do I quote a wildly popular web encyclopedia on a simple fact I am sure is correct? What would you do?
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I always wanted to make an iPhone call from 1000 feet deep. Of course, that big air thingy sticking in my mouth is kind of a hinderance, but go technology!
But it won't protect the iPhone from the pressure at that depth...
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That is true. The motherboard inside it could crack from pressure, The multi-touchscreen could become inoperable, the screen could warp, and I can 100% guarantee that the speakers would blow out.
Not to mention you would have to prepare yourself for the bends if you ever manage to get that deep ;)
Won't compress - so should be ok (Score:2)
I don't think the spray seals it like a cannister, but it's more like a silicone covering that goes over all the circuits, boards, etc. So water should leak in, behind the speaker, etc.
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Why, exactly, would we be wanting to spray...
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Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're going that deep, you'll want to take at least 3 iPhones with you.
If you were a tech diver, you'd either find this hilarious or you'd nod your head thinking, "Yes, at least 3, or two iPhones and one of a different brand."
The question is, of course, what they mean by waterproof.
Do they mean it's IP68 rated, submersible at depth for long periods of time, or is is merely IP65, splashable and washable?
Is it just "water resistant"? Have they sent the products out to be tested? Is this just snake oil?
Some of us take "waterproof" very seriously, and want to know exactly what it means. [industrial...osures.com]
Interestingly enough, the two specs that they list, MIL-PRF-38534 [dla.mil] and MIL-PRF-38535 [dla.mil], don't appear to have a damned thing to do with waterproofing. They're about component reliability, and there are several grades under each category.
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Wait a minute - are they just rebranding a conformal coating and selling it for a grand? If so, I admire the size and quality of their solid 316 stainless steel balls.
Re:Awesome. (Score:5, Informative)
Not a Spray (Score:5, Informative)
The FAQ for the Golden Shellback [golden-shellback.com] (what they call this stuff) site says:"9. What aspects confuse people most about this process:
a. People get confused and think this is a spray. It is not, the coating needs to be applied in a piece of equipment.
b. People seem to wonder a lot about the contacts and how they are sealed. The contacts are not, the surfaces are sealed. So, water can run in and out.
That right there ought to deal with a lot of the statements and questions that are about to be made in this thread.
But. .. is it a spray? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Not a Spray (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about this logically for a second. If by "surfaces" he means the circuit board itself, then this is called conformal coating and has been around for years. It is also not practical in small consumer electronics. If he means the surface of the device, then this requires sealing the entire device and making it fully waterproof (and not very useful).
By fact, by definition water damages electronics by shorting contacts together. If water is allowed to run in and out of the device, the contacts must be sealed.
I think that faq is a little disingenuous.
Re:Not a Spray (Score:5, Funny)
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water, n., a rarely-pure liquid unfairly characterized by the unfortunate fact that very small concentrations of dissolved ions have the ability to short out electronics
Re:Not a Spray (Score:5, Insightful)
The device is not sealed against water (i.e. it's not wrapped in celophane), so water can flow freely throughout the device. At the same time, contacts are not sealed, meaning the water that can flow freely though-out the device can short the contacts that have not been covered (battery, headphone, button, etc...), essentially destroying the device (by burning out components, batteries, etc...).
In otherwords, the coating only keeps water off the surface of a device that by itself isn't prone to water damage to begin with? I.e. all the plastic-coated IC's out there will last just fine under water, as long as you don't apply power to them.
What about moving surfaces, such as the speaker or microphone diaphram? Those devices are sensitive to water (the felt or paper used probably won't stand-up to water), and the high-frequency makes it unlikely that the coating will adhere and stay on.
Can this coating be applied to a thouch-sensitive surface? Can it be applied to the lens of a camera without severely distorting the optics?
I once dropped my phone in a bowl of soup, and the phone told me I had plugged an unrecognized peripheral into the headphone jack. It took a couple hours of carefully disassemling, cleaning, and drying before I got it working again (luckily nothing burned-out), and it sounds like this coating wouldn't have helped (since the contacts within the headphone jack wouldn't have been coated anyway) . Nothing like spending $1000 on absolutely nothing.
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A buddy of mine used to wrap his electronics and papers in a condom (you can buy the ones for oral sex that come without grease/lubricant, apparently) any time we went out to sea. If it's just your cellphone in there, you can still make calls without even taking it out, it's absolutely great.
As to this spray thing, I think you are right that a watertight bubble around your cellphone is the only way to waterproof things since the moment any seawater gets it, it will rust the thing through in a couple of days
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The salt and other minerals left behind when the water is gone grabbed me as why most of what's being discussed is silly on here.
It does you little good to seal up a laptop or iphone, all to have it full of calcium or salt in a few dips.
Re:Not a Spray (Score:4, Informative)
Also, according to Gizmodo [gizmodo.com], the coating of your electronic devices will be offered as a service for $50-$75. They also have a nice demo video posted.
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Well, for $6.95 you can actually get a spray that will "make" your computer waterproof... but I'd guess it will seriously screw up the screen, the PCB, and pretty much anything you spray it on besides concrete or outdoor decking.
http://www.hectorshardware.biz/shop/product.asp?dept_id=151101&sku=782763& [hectorshardware.biz]
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This is a bit more durable and about the same price:
http://www.plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip [plastidip.com]
You can get it in spray cans or quantities up to 50 gallon drums.
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Magically Repeling Water and Not Air (Score:4, Funny)
Son, I would like to see you a part of the Brooklyn Bridge. Not the whole thing, mind you, just a portion as a souvenir. You'll get a certificate that will be filed with a US copyright office documenting its authenticity.
Re:Magically Repeling Water and Not Air (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, water droplets are thicker than water. Go to a mattress store and ask about their mattress covers; buying a waterproof cover is pretty much mandatory for a foam mattress (think *sponge*), and the current level of technology [comforthouse.com] stops water and allergens but not air.
Mattress sellers often have a demo device, basically a closed tube where one end is covered only by their fabric and the tube has a whole bunch of colored mouthwash in it. Air goes through it, but you can't shake the mouthwash out.
This would obviously ding fan efficiency, but fanless laptops already exist...
I would wonder about their claim of "Completely Waterproof" ... does that mean I can drop it in the tub and scrub it clean? There has to be a limit somewhere...
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Ditto for water-resistant jackets, tents, etc. As a Boy Scout I learned that you should never touch the inside of a tent when it's raining; that changes the surface tension of the water (or some such thing) and the rain will start leaking in where you touched it. I've seen the same thing on modern Patagonia jackets, especially as the coatings wear off.
In other news (Score:2, Funny)
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Yeah, but they'll fall after I sue them for stealing the secret formula for my magic spray that repels tigers*:
- 250 mL distilled water
- 25 mg proylene glycol
- 10 mg "secret ingredient"
.
*Not intended for use in Asia.
I am a little skeptical (Score:3, Informative)
In order to waterproof anything electronic, every entry point for water needs to be completely sealed. Does anybody else see the problem here? Yes, that Blackberry might still be powered on. But no, you probably can't depress the keys any more and you almost certainly can't charge it or plug in headphones.
Also, 0.001" thick? I bet it scrapes off on accident rather easily. I also highly doubt that anybody could apply a coating that thin from a hand-held spray can.
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Or - rather than sealing off every entry point for water, you take the device apart and seal every surface - which is what they do. It doesn't matter how thin the surface of the coating is - inside the device, unless you make a habit of pulling things apart and scratching them.
Oh - and it's not a spray.
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http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/tag/video/ [gcaptain.com]
$1000 (Score:2, Insightful)
Definitely NOT a spray (Score:4, Informative)
a. People get confused and think this is a spray. It is not, the coating needs to be applied in a piece of equipment.
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But you CAN see why it was modded "troll?" If not, I don't see what you can do. If it was a joke it was a poor one. Out of all the Wikipedia articles on NAS [wikipedia.org] you chose the single one that would serve to garner you a "troll" mod. In fact, there are several that would not only have been a bad pun, but would have actually gotten you a +5 funny mod (New American Standard Bible, Norwich Anarchist Students, National Autistic Society, or my favorite, the Non Access Stratum. The last would have been funny AND ironic
sooo it's a $$$ conformal coat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't cross the streams (Score:5, Funny)
I hear if you dump this stuff in the middle of a swimming pool, the universe ends.
Sounds like a conformal coating (Score:2)
There are plenty of conformal coatings for this sort of thing. Fin-L-Kote is about $20/can. I've used that on PC boards in robotics applications. Automotive electronics are routinely conformal coated, usually with a rather thick coating.
The main problem is electrical contacts. Those have to be masked when the electronics are sprayed or dipped. The military/marine solution is gold-plated contacts, with everything else conformal coated.
This isn't going to work for something with a vented hard drive. S [mt-optech.com]
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This isn't a conformal coatings, it's a hydrophobic coating more like Scotch Gard, or Rain-X
Contract Phones (Score:5, Funny)
Useful for preserving your iPhone for the full length of the 268 million months you're tired to your contract here in the UK.
In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news...
Millions of gadgets have shutdown, or been damaged, due to overheating.
Good one (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't see how this can work. It has to do one of two things. It either keeps water out, meaning that it covers and seals every opening that leads into the device, or it somehow coats every surface of the device, inside and out, including all circuit boards and components.
So, if it seals the device, how does it know what openings have to be there? Blackberrys (at least my pearl), iPods, etc have power and headphone jacks. So it is only waterproof until I have to plug something into it, rupturing the film? How long will this stuff last before it ruptures on its own due to normal use (like pushing keys on a keyboard). What about battery compartments and other doors on the device? My Blackberry has a door over the MicroSD slot that I open frequently.
The other option is to coat all surfaces inside the device. What about things that have to be left open to the atmosphere to allow humidity to exit, barometric pressure to equalize, etc? I own a Yaesu VX-7R handheld transceiver for amateur radio. This device is fully submersible. One problem they had with the first batch was the waterproofing sealed the inside of the device off from the atmosphere, which would cause a pressure differential against the speaker during barometric changes, which would reduce the amount the diaphragm could travel, resulting in reduced audio output. They fixed it by installing a valve that would equalize pressure. Now that problem occurred in a device designed to be waterproof. Just imagine the problems this would cause with typical gadgets.
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I don't think this is what they're proposing, but you could plug "dummy plugs" into all the openings, then apply the coating, cut around the base of the plugs, and remove them. You'd have a little bit of leakage where you cut (you've peeled a little bit away), but you'd be more waterproof than before.
There's an interesting world of spray-on and even roll-on coatings [strippablecoating.com] out there, especially if you have access to a paint booth or a st
Conformal coating?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like a conformal coating [wikipedia.org] which is nothing new, you can buy a can of the spray on type at your local electronics store for a few bucks.
Batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
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Odd thing it wasn't invented by Steve Jobs himself, if you ask me.
This is good (Score:2)
I've had two device fail because of liquid.. A 2 megapixel (as was the style at the the time) camera fell into a lake for about 3 seconds... pulled the batteries let it dry for a week. DOA.
A flash that somehow got beer into it.. POP, whoops..
A little weatherproofing would have helped. 1000$ is a bit steep though.
I was just researching this same thing. (Score:5, Informative)
Like a month ago we had to make something IP54 Compliant This is part of the IEC 60529 Standard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code [wikipedia.org]
So even though I am the Linux Software GUY, I started to investigate water repellent coatings.
I think they are just using a hydrophobic coating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobic [wikipedia.org]
Hardly worth $1000 a bottle.
Similar to Scotchgard, Rain-X, Aquapel, Jigaloo, RainClear and Magic Sand.
These use Organosilanes like Trimethylsilanol (TMS) (CH3)3SiOH, or perfluorooctanesulfonates (PFOS) C8HF17O3S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFOS [wikipedia.org]
Look at the fluorene chains on this one,
fluorocarbons are the basis for things like Teflon and Fluorinert that don't react with anything and so in Teflon's case make good non-stick surfaces.
Unfortunately Scotchgard has been "reformulated" to make is "safer" PFOS never breaks down, good for electronics, bad for people and the environment. the new Formula (Perfluorobutane sulfonate PFBS ) is designed to break down after a month, so you'd have to keep reapplying.
If you want to research this further see Patents, 3574791, 6676733, and 6994890
Also get on youtube and look up magic sand, some cool videos there.
Prediciton (Score:3, Insightful)
$1000? (Score:3, Insightful)
Insurance would be cheaper (Score:2)
Seriously, who would use this 'spray' on their iphone/ipod/whatever? At $1000, it costs 2 or 3 times the price of most consumer electronics. You could, probably, buy some sort of accidental damage insurance much cheaper than this spray costs, and just get the device replaced if it's damaged by water. Heck, put the $1000 into a fairly safe/conservative investment fund, and get interest on it.
Snake oil (Score:2)
"That's not water damage, the WIND drove the water into your device, and if you read the guarantee very carefully, you'll see that wind damage is excluded from coverage."
This thing has snake-oil written all over it.
I wonder... (Score:2)
how well the DVD drive in my laptop will function underwater?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Notebook computers? (Score:2)
I can't imagine a waterproofing spray being a good thing for anything with cooling fans.
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And as a result, it would be almost impossible to state with certainty that it is in fact protected. So what's the point of spending $1,000, to achieve th
Not Waterproof/Splash Proof (Score:2)
The creators have said, citation not handy, that this isn't for waterproofing, but for splash proofing. So, when you drop some coffee on your $300 cell phone, it doesn't die. The movies of them dropping it in water are just demonstrations and not expectations of actual use. Contacts like for headphones and chargers and what not are still open to the water.
Waterproof doesn't guarantee function (Score:3, Interesting)
If it indeed ist just a 1 mil thick water resistant conformal coat, then that far from guarantees electronics will still function.
A lot of electronics widgets at high operating frequencies (think cell phone RF stages) may not directly be damaged by the water, but the prescence of the water will disrupt their operation by bogging down high speed signals with the high dielectric constant of water (about 80), which is also usually VERY lossy. So expect digital things to go on the fritz till the water fully drains out, and RF stuff to be euqally fouled up with low or no output power until the water drains out fully.
Over temp and time conformal coats are are real double edged sword. SMT components (99% of the stuff in most of todays consumer electronics) can be damaged in thermal cycling as a result of confomral coating that wicks under their body and expands/contracts much faster than the cermaic bodies of the parts. I've suffered the wrath of multiple different conformal coatings in mil/aerospace and concluded that usually it creates about as much mahem as it prevents. YMMV.
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water resistant maybe (Score:2)
waterproof? I don't think so.
DIY version (Score:3, Interesting)
Seen this demonstrated before (Score:3, Informative)
On Tekzilla:
http://revision3.com/tekzilla/newtime/ [revision3.com]
Can't remember where exactly in the episode, but it's there, and there's some good footage of various pieces of tech all wet and still running.
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But water proof so it will burn under water too.
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Haven't there been lots of examples of mineral oil cooled PCs, submersing everything but the optical drives?
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from what I read in the summary, why the christ would I spend $1000 to protect my $250 iPod?
According to the summary:
A creator of the technology said it could be used for emergency first-responders, bio-medical devices and historic preservation.
If lives or the future depend on your iPod, you might get it coated. Obviously, this is for something other than iPods.