yep, spilled a full beer on my pedalboard... awesome... :D

[Quackzed]

my buddy was getting me a beer while i was playing, he hands it to me, i thought i had it but it turns out I was wrong..
glass lands on my pedals and dumps.... noooo!
so no one saw this happen and the band launches in to another tune, no sound....i pulled the 'to the amp' cable and went straight to the amp... not great but fine...
a few minutes later i smelled magic smoke....
dc adapter was still plugged in... i stopped, unplugged it and finished the set. !@#$!
so its in the trunk, I'm not dealing with it tonight...
the main recipient of the beer was my blues driver.... ugh!
i had a thomas wah, seemed dry... ts-5, distortion +,blues driver, milkbox comp,and a dr.Q (dead cover band...)
any advise on de-beering a stompbox? or 2 

[vendettav]

dude i dont know what to say but that honestly sux!!! 
sorry for your pedalboard 

[deadastronaut]

what beer was it?...

[frequencycentral]

any advise on de-beering a stompbox? or 2 

Rehab?

[newfish]

Rice is pretty absobent.

A friend's Wife had a 'juice cup' accident in her new bag.  Rice did a good job of soaking up most of the liquid.

Let's hope it was only cheap beer...

Hope you get sorted. 

[linny1982]

I've heard of people using methelated spirits or isopropil alcohol on waterlogged phones. Wont save anything thats fried but it'll clean off the beer

[Mike Burgundy]

I've washed beer/cigarette tar/mucus/etc. of circuit borads with warm water often. Just make sure it dries really well afterwards and rinse with a volatile substance like isopropyl alcohol to take out any leftovers. Works a charm, haven't tried it on pots and switches though.
hih

[digi2t]

Soaked my last cell phone with Pepsi.

I went this route, and it worked (absolutely no gaurantee implied); Rinse throughly with denatued water (check your auto parts store, some carry it, for topping off car batteries),

then rinse with methyl hydrate (gas line anti-freeze, methyl hydrate or methanol is commonly used as a gas line antifreeze. Since methanol and water are completely miscible that is they will dissolve in each other completely),

then spray throughly with electronics contact cleaner, and let air dry over night. Will dry much quicker, but put it in a warm, dry place, and be patient.

Worked for me, hopefully it will for you, if you didn't blow anything when the liquid hit it.

Cheers,
Dino

[Quackzed]

what beer was it?...  

blue moon. good for people, bad for pedals...
i was thinking of just taking off the backs and batteries, and rinsing them off with water, maybee a tiny bit of dish soap?!?
then leaving them to dry out?
hopefully the beer didn't fry anything, but i did smell something funny...
i'll have to resist the urge to just plug em in, and try to clean them out first...  

-methyl hydrate huh? that sounds like it might work... i'll have to take a look at how soaked they got, if theres beer everywhere i'll
have to rinse them and i'll try the denatured water/methyl hydrate/contact cleaner... thanks for the info!

[newfish]

Hmm.

If your pedals are damaged, you might consider joining one of those internet thingies.

You know - the ones on the internet for fixing electronic stuff?

Good luck finding one though - the Internet is full of naked ladies... 

[petemoore]

any advise on de-beering a stompbox? or 2
  Unplugging DC and AC asap might be quick enough to drop the damage potential before the fluid finds a place to create a direct short or other heat-creating connection.
   Letting it dry out before any more power is applied allows the ''fluid race Vs. human unplugging speed'' final results to be found out. Sometimes the fluid allows a few seconds or so before conditions create a damage-control-scenario.
   My PB's have seen beer [survived the glancing blow of fluids, no down-time], pop-up-deluge of rains [major damage].
   How good the box is sealed of course helps, but the DC jack being what and where it is, will be vulnerable to any inadvertantly added fluids.
  But fire was the worst, the Ins. Estimator was right...''consider that' as damaged electronics''...it took about a year to give up on all the bypass switches, power supply, electrolytics...anything else in them was smoke damaged [pots with opens/scritches in the sweep]...definitely not worth the sorting time, a total rebuild would have been quicker and easier, finding out it was required was just a waste of time after that fire.
   
   

[Scruffie]

I seem to remember a thread or a large portion of a thread over on the 'other' forum that had quite in depth tips on cleaning beer (and other fluids) from effects.

[Quackzed]

ugh, a fire, that sux... i'm crossing my fingers and hoping i didnt fry anything, maybee i got to it fast enough to stop any direct shorts...
after another look i think maybee only the blues driver and compressor got the full blast...
-i'll come back and give yall an update once i take a better look...
-yeah, im gonna do a bit of research as well, so i'll take a look over there... see if theres a 'positive outcome' precedent ...

[R.G.]

Cleaning submerged electronics:
0. Get to it *fast*. Water is very corrosive. Time matters.
1. Get the contaminants out. Open the thing up, flush it with clean soft water. Soft is important because you want to not leave mineral deposits. If the water was muddy or heavily contaminated, spray or brush to get the mud and other gook off.
2. Get the water out. Flush with alcohol of some form, because water and alcohol are miscible in all proportions, so the water dissolves into the alcohol, which carries the water away to a large percentage, then the remaining alcohol evaporates. Alcohol is approximately as flammable as gasoline, so act accordingly if you want to stay out of a burn unit.
3. Get it dry. Noontime sunlight in central Texas or Arizona is about right. Hairdryer will work too. Get it all dry, especially the insides of things like pots.
4. Get ready to replace parts which died anyway.

At one time, home dishwashers were used to clean heavily soiled boards in the computer industry, detergents and all. Worked, mostly.

[PRR]

> 0. Get to it *fast*. Water is very corrosive. Time matters.

00. KILL POWER!! Water (beer) plus electricity is 1,000 times faster than just water.

As Gil discovered: > a few minutes later i smelled magic smoke....  dc adapter was still plugged in...

I thought a hard-drive would work underwater. I had washed and dried them back to life. There's no hi-Z nodes. So I powered-up a drive, dunked... it quit in seconds. And I could see the bubbles where the electric water was eating conductors.

BTW: "dry patiently" can be days or a week. My standard dry was a rack in the flow from the office air-circulation duct, and my standard dry was a full work-week. I have had some luck with 2 very sunny days. I have had no luck with one day in a warm spot.

[rockhorst]

Just in case: methanol is very toxic (a you know from antifreeze). Wear gloves, since it can enter through your skin.

[R.G.]

> 0. Get to it *fast*. Water is very corrosive. Time matters.
00. KILL POWER!! Water (beer) plus electricity is 1,000 times faster than just water.

I ran into an interesting device; the supercritical water oxidizer. What you do is put water in a pressure vessel, introduce lots of dissolved oxygen, then run up the pressure so it doesn't boil, and run up the temperature to Really Hot.

You then flow in water containing [whatever]. At high pressures and temperatures, the water+O2 mix is supercorrosive. Pretty much irrespective of what you feed in, you get out water, Co2, and minerals, mostly metal oxides.

Water is nasty stuff. Adding extra herbs and spices makes it more so.

[Quackzed]

thanks for all the advise guys!
well, i think i got lucky!
i opened up the bd and comp, and aside from being a bit sticky on the outside, they look ok. i had all the pedals jacks in as well as dc jacks, so i think that stopped any beer from just pouring in, and it doesnt look like any beer 'pooled' anywhere so thats good.
still, i'm not plugging them in untill i'm sure.
my game plan is to..
1  take out the  "guts", and clean the boxes seperartely
2 get some distilled water ....
3 give em a little toothbrushing with a tiny bit dish soap, gently...esp jacks ...clean eveything...
4 * im gonna hold off on soaking the pots, i'll test it first i think, i just dont wanna mess em up if they're fine...
5 distilled water rinse
6 alchohol rinse
7dry em. maybee put em on the roof of my car (black) leav em to bake...

[PRR]

> a tiny bit dish soap

This was BEER, right? Beer will dissolve completely with plain water.

Nacho crumbs, finger-grime DO have oils, usually stale oil by the time you get called to clean-up, and do need something stronger than water.

Washing-up dish-soap is fine IF you rinse WELL, and you actually need it. Beer doesn't need soap.

The purer alcohols will cut oils. US "Denatured" is often cut with a yucky-oil to prevent drinking, and may leave an oil residue. Methanol is cheap in the paint aisle, is toxit to drink and bad on your skin but not the worst thing around. Acetone will eat oils faster, also some plastics, will rot your liver but not very fast if you stay ventilated. For fine electronics I have used EverClear 190, a 95% ethyl alcohol sold for drinking (i.e. you go to the liquor store and pay the drinking-tax even if you don't drink it). But liquor to clean beer is absurd hair-of-the-dog.

Specific to Finger-Grime (I've cleaned a LOT of PC keyboards): plain soap often does not cut it. Depending on the situation, you can try Woolite (clothing hand-wash soap) which is made to cut body-grime; or ammonia-water which cuts body-grime great but is quite corrosive to metals and the fumes make you dizzy/sick.

[deadastronaut]

ahhhh blue moon.....it wouldn't be a problem with carling/fosters/carlsberg its water anyway...