Sigmo
Second Officer
United States
Offline
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Most electronic and electrical equipment will have a rating for temperature and humidity, and then the phrase "non condensing". They throw that in there to point out that you do not want water to condense onto the various parts.
While pure water is an electrical insulator, one rarely, if ever, finds pure water in nature or anywhere else. And the contaminants in water often create conductivity in the water.
Also, water that condenses onto circuit boards, etc., can dissolve some contaminants that are on those surfaces and become conductive from that, as well. So the result is that the contaminated water creates conductive paths on the boards, etc., bridging across circuit points that were not intended to be "shorted" this way.
This can result in damage due to these stray current paths as well as electrolytic corrosion that happens very quickly, electroplating metals from one point to another. Circuit boards and even insulators can be damaged this way, and it can happen quickly. |
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