" A Poor Man's Clean Room "

[CyByte]

Poor man's clean room:

1) Go to bathroom with a showerhead, the smaller the better and setup a work area. Use a board or something similar across the sink. Do not bring your project in, but you can bring tools (you'll see why ahead).

2) Run shower at full hot so that much steam is generated.

3) Let steam evaporate and re-enter when the room is dry.

4) Go into the room and wipe down the 'pda' with a tack rag or if you don't have one, a lightly damp lint free cloth.

5) Begin your work by bringing in your project and working on the pda you setup in advance and wiped down


Now - the big question: Why does this work and why should I bother?

Simple! The steam floats in the air. Water molecules are highly attracted to dust particles and they attach together while in the air as a steam. The water particles being heavier than water, after losing their heat, fall down. So technically all the dust that was in the air, is now on every horizontal surface in the room.

You have to use your judgement when doing this, obviously you cannot begin work while there is steam in the air, nor should you work with a damp surface.

Couple more tips: do remove all bath rugs and towels if you can. Even though dust is basically human skin, lint is just as bad in this type of work. Also, as you suggested, blow things off with compressed air, but try to step out of your 'clean room' before doing this, otherwise everything you're
blowing is now airborne again.

[mores]

hey, thanks for the instructions.
I heard of "bathroom clean rooms", but didn't think of the steam thing.