On Friday evening, I walked out of my 74 degree air conditioned office with my empeg tightly in its Pelican case. But being 90 degrees (the hotest day in recent memory) and having my car parked in direct sunlight all day, the inside of my car was an absolute oven; and so humid that I could get a mouthfull of water by simply breathing in through my mouth.

So, I snapped open my Pelican case and took out my empeg. And as always, it was freezing cold; possibly some kind of insulation + air conditioning + being all metal. But moments after I put it in my dash and started up the car, I noticed the lense was fogged. Condensation, I'm guessing.

Then it hit me. Steaming hot humid air + freezing metal = condensation = water inside my empeg!

Um, but I just kinda left it in my dash, chose some songs, and drove away.

But could this have been a problem? Is this something that empeg owners should watch out for? Or was it just fogging on the lense... just because? Thanks, as always.

I am certain it is not a good thing. Granted, the odds of water droplets forming large enough to bridge exposed traces may not be that high, but it is something best to be avoided. Almost all electronics give their temperature ranges as "non condensing", probably for this very reason.

Not to mention that condensation would tend to corrode things like the IDE connector pins and such.

You mean those gold plated pointy things?

Well, gold won't corrode unless it's exposed to something like HydroFlouric Acid - it's what the majority of connectors in the box are coated with. Even tin or solder coated items won't really corrode. Corrosion is not the issue, and that takes a long time anyway.

The issue is the formation of conductive salt solutions by condensation and residues left on the board. This would allow the formation of conductive paths across board and component surfaces (short circuits) which then cause either non-fatal or fatal main circuit failures.

The empeg has got a high voltage supply for the display (60V) and it also has various low voltage supplies and feeds on the board. A cross circuit between a 60V source and something else might not be so good, no matter how robust the empeg has turned out to be.

To be honest, you really shouldn't operate it in condensing conditions, and you should let it acclimatise first before even plugging it in to a power source. I have seen the results of catastrophic failures to empegs here, including one classic with burnt power tracks and just about every passive component in the power supply destroyed (still managed to fix it, though! ). Whilst you shouldn't be excessively cautious with your baby, you should use common sense - there aren't that many spares left to play with, especially the one thing that there are NO more spares of - the main PCB. One strategic burnt track, and your toy is toast.....

You mean those gold plated pointy things?

Well, I was thinking of the female contacts on the cable, not the motherboard IDE header. To be honest, I have no idea if those are gold plated or not.

Thanks for the tip. Hm, maybe that "pressure release valve" on the Pelican case can be opened to let it adjust to the outside temperature. Regardless, I'll make sure it doesn't power on untill the temperature stabilizes.

I've got one of the Pellican cases, and I don't think that opening the valve will have any measurable effect or warming rate. Other than the volume of air that's exchanged when you first open it (due to pressure differences) there's pretty much no air flow or heat exchange that's going to happen at the pressure valve. You'd be better off to open the case and leave it open, directly exposing the empeg to the ambient air.

how come gluegunning a bunch of those small balls that absorb moisture in shoes and some pill bottles (silica gel, was it?) to the bottom lid of your empeg top come to mind?

Well, there'd have to be quite a bit of the stuff to absorb all ambient humidity during the time period when the empeg is coming up to ambient temperature. I don't think its absorption rate is nearly large enough, unless you encase the empeg in the stuff. :-)

Did you ever wonder why silica comes with that 'Do Not Eat' warning? Try taking a fresh bag of it and dropping it in some water - the balls shatter into nice little sharp shards. [/useless trivia]

-Zeke

When I was living in Taiwan, I had the pleasure of working one summer in an unfinished factory with no air cond (or windows or doors) and it's really hot and humid there. I always brought my laptop from home and went to work in an air con'd car, so when I'd get there, the laptop would be really cold. I found that it would behave strangely until the condensation would dry off, which would take about a half hour of sitting around.

That laptop died shortly after that summer, maybe from the condensation, or maybe from that time an ammonia etcher broke and filled the room with concentrated fumes... I ran like hell, but the laptop was in there for a few hours until the fumes cleared. It seems that the innerlayers of the circuit board developed sever open traces in the memory area, so I'm thinking all that water wicked it's way in there and went to town on the the traces.