The other day my daughter and I had an idea for a fun project and I got all the equipment out and set it up for her to sing into, and something wasn't working. After trying a few things, I opened up the little box for the first time and saw this
You may be confused as to what you're looking at. Look for the little piles of dirt. At first I thought it was cockroach poo, but then upon conferring with my son, it's dirt, and dead ants.
Corrosion in electronics is common, notice the copper plate at the top there? Copper corrodes quickly here. Also if you look at the bottom pic you can see light green corrosion near the bottom. This type of thing happens from time to time here. Electronics that are stored, can suddenly become some pest's home. Others can be subject to corrosion from the humidity. The electronics you leave on, can become nice warm places for interesting things like geckos to lay eggs in.
We have what we call a 'dry box' for important electronics. It's a wooden cupboard with a light bulb in it and a fan. That is usually enough to keep this type of corrosion at bay. Although we do find it much more common near the beach (more humidity and salt in the air).
I took several Q-tips and some rubbing alcohol and clean out all the dirt but the corrosion was unrepairable. So I'll be replacing the unit somehow. Still it lasted me several good years, and I can be happy with it.
I have a backup plan, there are some electronics gurus here who could probably fix it, but the time involved would be quite a bit. I think that it might have been salvageable if I had caught the corrosion before plugging it in. I think giving it power zapped something inside that no amount of cleaning will bring back to life.
And this, is only 1 more reason why having technical people here to support the work is important. Someone needs to be able to open up your laptop and point to the big pile of dead ants and dirt and say 'Well, THERE's yer problem!' ... and then fix it.
