My Green Earth Day Suggestion

[Peter]

Rajinder Yadav <devguy at ...> writes:
> Anyone know what is the ideal air pressure to use if you go with a air 
> compressor vs a air-in-a-can?

Do not exceed 1.5 bars after the regulator with a normal (1-1.5mm) hand nozzle,
and do not 'spin' the fans using air any more than necessary.
 
> Also where could I find a relatively cheap (hobby) compressor that also can 
> be used as a vacuum?

The blowers sold to inflate/deflate air beds and mattresses will do what you
need, and they are not 'compressors', however they are not meant for continuous
operation. Occasional use is ok. A pressure reducer is not needed in this case.
Vacuuming large yucky things will void warranty (although they are supposed to
withstand several oz of beach sand sucked in or out of a mattress occasionally). 

Hoover used to make a shop vacuum that also had a dust blower attachment, but it
costs a lot of money and it's a heavy industrial device with wheels. You
probably do not want that.
 
> With my old PC I used qtips to get under the fan between the heat-sink. It was
> disgusting what came out of there!

I use the cpu temperature monitor to tell me when it's cleaning time. More than
5 degrees over known value at known ambient and load -> cleaning time. Works
great for the laptop where it is a pain to get to the fan and one can't see
whether it's clogged from outside. I once wrote software that computed when it's
'cleaning time' from these parameters, using Tk.

There is no substitute for filtered air. Once upon a time (when disks were
fridge sized and tape machines had exposed heads) computers ran in air
conditioned, air filtered rooms. Now with textiles and fluff all around
machines, plus miniaturization (increases heat load per cooler area) things have
become much more complicated. I once obtained junked computer room parts that
had spent 15 years operating in filtered conditioned dry air. Looked and worked
as good as new. Try that today. Anyway I have no complaints about the MTBF of
modern computing devices. I ran a 486 for over 7 years, and several 386 bare
boards for over 10. Some were embedded systems that got so badly gunked up that
I had to use a broom to 'dig' them out of fluff and dust bunnies.

Peter


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