Something just dawned on me.
I wasn't thinking, and mixed a batch using Loranne Grape (completely spacing off and missing the "blue dye #4 and red dye #1" in the ingrediants list) and within one cart had a whole mess of black crud around the coil on my Joye510C atomizer.
Vapor output was suffering as a result.
And while staring at it, the light went on. This "stuff" looks a lot like the nasty junk that builds up in our coffee makers at work.
And we just happen to have some stuff that turns a totally black gunk encrusted coffee maker and expresso machine into a brandy new, shiny as hell, see your reflection it it wonder.
Being one who uses (and abuses) the holy crap out of our coffee and expresso makers here at work, I've used this stuff to clean the hardware for years.
It comes in little packets. You put it in where you'd normally put the coffee grounds, run it just like you were making coffee and then rinse the thing out and you're good to go. Normally, when you get done and you drain the pot, the first 1/4 of what comes out is all kinds of yukky looking black sediment that USED to be stuck to the innards of the hardware, and then it drains a clear blue.
Hm..
Yeah, so I just had to try it. I took my pot in that was overdue for a cleaning anyway, ran a load through it, and when it got to the the clear blue part I poured that (still super hot) into a coffee pot, wrapped the aforementioned atomizer in some paper towels to prevent scratching the paint, and put it in a pair of hemostats and just shook the hell out of it in the stuff.
Lo and behold, all the nasty black stuff just broke up into chunks and fell off the atomizer to settle in the bottom of the cup. Not in hours, but in maybe a couple minutes.
I then flushed the atomizer with water for a couple minutes, just like I'd do when flushing the coffee pot, and then blew it out. On visual inspection under one of our soldering station magnifiers here at work, it looks indistinguishable from a brand new atomizer.
Intriguing to say the least, but is it safe?
I went to the janitor's closet, found a new bag of the packets we use and was stunned to find out what was in the stuff.
Non toxic, Biodegradable.
Ingrediants: Trisodium Phosphate, Sodium Tripoly Phosphate, Sodium Metasilicate, and Sodium Carbonate.
In short? Soap, with stuff that when combined under heat in a fluid environment turns it basic, rather than acidic.
This is the same crap I used to add to steam generators when I was in the Nuclear power industry to maintain a basic PH on the secondary side.
It rinses clean. You don't want to drink the stuff, but like the ice machine cleaner is designed to be used in vessels that you drink out of. Furthermore it's designed to work in a very hot, very wet environment, (steamy even, it does wonders on the expresso machines), and is safe enough that your basic janitorial staff can use it on the stuff you drink out of every day without risk.
I put a slight vacuum on it with a hacked up rubber glove and one of our vaccuum desoldering stations and lit it up. Works fine. Flushed it again, and stuck it under a micro, and it looks just as clean as a brand new one.
So in the interests of science, I guinea pigged it after looking up the stuff on the MSDS's. Of course all of them had "don't intentionally inhale in dry form (duh). However, in the seriously diluted quantities we're talking about here (a packet's maybe got half an ounce total between all the chemicals, and it's diluted first by about a gallon of water, then flushed with a couple other gallons, we're talking at most trace remnants when done), I think it's pretty safe. After all, if they trust the common janitor with zero training to use this stuff on the coffee makers that hundreds of people in my office alone drink from on a daily basis...
vape output is just like brand new. No bad taste. I haven't keeled over, or spouted a 3rd hand out of my forehead.
From the MSDS:
Trisodium Phosphate:
EMERGENCY OVERVIEW: Not hazardous when used according to directions.
ROUTES OF ENTRY: Eyes, Mouth, and Nose
POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS
EYES: Contact can cause mechanical and/or chemical irritation.
SKIN: Prolonged contact may cause irritation and/or chemical burns. Wash with soap and water. If irritation persists, contact a
physician.
INGESTION: Material is nontoxic, however, ingestion of a significant quantity may cause an obstruction and/or chemical burns.
If gastric or respiratory discomfort occurs, contact a physician.
INHALATION: Inhalation of dust may irritate nose, throat, and lungs. Remove to fresh air. Seek medical attention if
condition persists.
ACUTE HEALTH HAZARDS
EYES: May cause mechanical irritation of the eyes, burning, redness, or pain. If these conditions persist, contact a physician.
SKIN: May cause chemical burns and or irritation.
INHALATION: The dust from dry product may cause upper respiratory irritation. If this condition develops, remove the person to
fresh air. If these conditions persist, contact a physician.
INGESTION: Unlikely to occur. If significant quantity is swallowed, the product will react with moisture and cause gastric
blockage. If this occurs, contact a physician.
CHRONIC HEALTH HAZARDS: Chronic overexposure to dust may result in lung disease and/or cancer.
MEDICAL CONDITIONS GENERALLY AGGRAVATED BY EXPOSURE: Pre-existing upper respiratory and lung diseases, which may
include, but are not limited to, bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma.
Sodium Metasilicate:
This material has not been tested for primary eye irritation potential.
However, on the basis of its high degree of alkalinity, it is regarded as
corrosive to the eyes.
When this material was tested for skin corrosion/irritation potential
according to OECD Guidelines Section 404, it produced dermal
corrosion.
The acute oral toxicity of this product has not been tested. When sodium
silicates were tested on a 100% solids basis, their single dose acute oral
LD50 in rats ranged from 1500 mg/kg to 3200 mg/kg. The acute oral
lethality resulted from nonspecific causes.
Sodium Carbonate. GRAS, unless you snort pounds of it trying to be Scarface.
Sodium Percarbonate. Ditto.
Sodium Tripolyphosphate: (this one was amusing):
INHALATION: In general, long-term exposures to high concentrations of dust may cause increased mucous flow in
the nose and respiratory system airways.
This condition usually disappears after exposure stops.(6) Controversy exists as to the role exposure to dust has in the
development of chronic bronchitis (inflammation of the air passages into the lungs).
Other factors such as smoking and general air pollution are more important, but dust exposure may also contribute.(6)
Blue Dye:
Now this just slays me. It proves my collage physics prof was correct.
"If you want to sell something that is going to clean something, it has to conform to 3 rules to be sellable.
1) It's got to foam.
2) It's got to smell bad
3) It must be blue. By god, if it's blue, it MUST work."
Ok, so what is this magic crap?
It goes by the highly imaginative moniker of:
Coffee/Tea Dispensor Cleaner.
It's made by CDCC products (Coffee Dispenser Cleaner Company, LLC) out of Orange, CA, and has patent Nos 5,656,583 and 5,888,313. It's NSF (Nonfood compounds Programs) listed A1 (i.e. safe for bozos to use without mucking it up).
I can tell you this much, I've worked for this company for 18 years now, and have drank probably a couple thousand gallons of coffee that have come out of pots that have been cleaned by this stuff over the years, and aside from being overly high strung under deadlines, haven't seen any real side effects from it's use. I don't think we've had anyone keel over at the coffee pots.
Mark
I wasn't thinking, and mixed a batch using Loranne Grape (completely spacing off and missing the "blue dye #4 and red dye #1" in the ingrediants list) and within one cart had a whole mess of black crud around the coil on my Joye510C atomizer.
Vapor output was suffering as a result.
And while staring at it, the light went on. This "stuff" looks a lot like the nasty junk that builds up in our coffee makers at work.
And we just happen to have some stuff that turns a totally black gunk encrusted coffee maker and expresso machine into a brandy new, shiny as hell, see your reflection it it wonder.
Being one who uses (and abuses) the holy crap out of our coffee and expresso makers here at work, I've used this stuff to clean the hardware for years.
It comes in little packets. You put it in where you'd normally put the coffee grounds, run it just like you were making coffee and then rinse the thing out and you're good to go. Normally, when you get done and you drain the pot, the first 1/4 of what comes out is all kinds of yukky looking black sediment that USED to be stuck to the innards of the hardware, and then it drains a clear blue.
Hm..
Yeah, so I just had to try it. I took my pot in that was overdue for a cleaning anyway, ran a load through it, and when it got to the the clear blue part I poured that (still super hot) into a coffee pot, wrapped the aforementioned atomizer in some paper towels to prevent scratching the paint, and put it in a pair of hemostats and just shook the hell out of it in the stuff.
Lo and behold, all the nasty black stuff just broke up into chunks and fell off the atomizer to settle in the bottom of the cup. Not in hours, but in maybe a couple minutes.
I then flushed the atomizer with water for a couple minutes, just like I'd do when flushing the coffee pot, and then blew it out. On visual inspection under one of our soldering station magnifiers here at work, it looks indistinguishable from a brand new atomizer.
Intriguing to say the least, but is it safe?
I went to the janitor's closet, found a new bag of the packets we use and was stunned to find out what was in the stuff.
Non toxic, Biodegradable.
Ingrediants: Trisodium Phosphate, Sodium Tripoly Phosphate, Sodium Metasilicate, and Sodium Carbonate.
In short? Soap, with stuff that when combined under heat in a fluid environment turns it basic, rather than acidic.
This is the same crap I used to add to steam generators when I was in the Nuclear power industry to maintain a basic PH on the secondary side.
It rinses clean. You don't want to drink the stuff, but like the ice machine cleaner is designed to be used in vessels that you drink out of. Furthermore it's designed to work in a very hot, very wet environment, (steamy even, it does wonders on the expresso machines), and is safe enough that your basic janitorial staff can use it on the stuff you drink out of every day without risk.
I put a slight vacuum on it with a hacked up rubber glove and one of our vaccuum desoldering stations and lit it up. Works fine. Flushed it again, and stuck it under a micro, and it looks just as clean as a brand new one.
So in the interests of science, I guinea pigged it after looking up the stuff on the MSDS's. Of course all of them had "don't intentionally inhale in dry form (duh). However, in the seriously diluted quantities we're talking about here (a packet's maybe got half an ounce total between all the chemicals, and it's diluted first by about a gallon of water, then flushed with a couple other gallons, we're talking at most trace remnants when done), I think it's pretty safe. After all, if they trust the common janitor with zero training to use this stuff on the coffee makers that hundreds of people in my office alone drink from on a daily basis...
vape output is just like brand new. No bad taste. I haven't keeled over, or spouted a 3rd hand out of my forehead.
From the MSDS:
Trisodium Phosphate:
EMERGENCY OVERVIEW: Not hazardous when used according to directions.
ROUTES OF ENTRY: Eyes, Mouth, and Nose
POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS
EYES: Contact can cause mechanical and/or chemical irritation.
SKIN: Prolonged contact may cause irritation and/or chemical burns. Wash with soap and water. If irritation persists, contact a
physician.
INGESTION: Material is nontoxic, however, ingestion of a significant quantity may cause an obstruction and/or chemical burns.
If gastric or respiratory discomfort occurs, contact a physician.
INHALATION: Inhalation of dust may irritate nose, throat, and lungs. Remove to fresh air. Seek medical attention if
condition persists.
ACUTE HEALTH HAZARDS
EYES: May cause mechanical irritation of the eyes, burning, redness, or pain. If these conditions persist, contact a physician.
SKIN: May cause chemical burns and or irritation.
INHALATION: The dust from dry product may cause upper respiratory irritation. If this condition develops, remove the person to
fresh air. If these conditions persist, contact a physician.
INGESTION: Unlikely to occur. If significant quantity is swallowed, the product will react with moisture and cause gastric
blockage. If this occurs, contact a physician.
CHRONIC HEALTH HAZARDS: Chronic overexposure to dust may result in lung disease and/or cancer.
MEDICAL CONDITIONS GENERALLY AGGRAVATED BY EXPOSURE: Pre-existing upper respiratory and lung diseases, which may
include, but are not limited to, bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma.
Sodium Metasilicate:
This material has not been tested for primary eye irritation potential.
However, on the basis of its high degree of alkalinity, it is regarded as
corrosive to the eyes.
When this material was tested for skin corrosion/irritation potential
according to OECD Guidelines Section 404, it produced dermal
corrosion.
The acute oral toxicity of this product has not been tested. When sodium
silicates were tested on a 100% solids basis, their single dose acute oral
LD50 in rats ranged from 1500 mg/kg to 3200 mg/kg. The acute oral
lethality resulted from nonspecific causes.
Sodium Carbonate. GRAS, unless you snort pounds of it trying to be Scarface.
Sodium Percarbonate. Ditto.
Sodium Tripolyphosphate: (this one was amusing):
INHALATION: In general, long-term exposures to high concentrations of dust may cause increased mucous flow in
the nose and respiratory system airways.
This condition usually disappears after exposure stops.(6) Controversy exists as to the role exposure to dust has in the
development of chronic bronchitis (inflammation of the air passages into the lungs).
Other factors such as smoking and general air pollution are more important, but dust exposure may also contribute.(6)
Blue Dye:
Now this just slays me. It proves my collage physics prof was correct.
"If you want to sell something that is going to clean something, it has to conform to 3 rules to be sellable.
1) It's got to foam.
2) It's got to smell bad
3) It must be blue. By god, if it's blue, it MUST work."
Ok, so what is this magic crap?
It goes by the highly imaginative moniker of:
Coffee/Tea Dispensor Cleaner.
It's made by CDCC products (Coffee Dispenser Cleaner Company, LLC) out of Orange, CA, and has patent Nos 5,656,583 and 5,888,313. It's NSF (Nonfood compounds Programs) listed A1 (i.e. safe for bozos to use without mucking it up).
I can tell you this much, I've worked for this company for 18 years now, and have drank probably a couple thousand gallons of coffee that have come out of pots that have been cleaned by this stuff over the years, and aside from being overly high strung under deadlines, haven't seen any real side effects from it's use. I don't think we've had anyone keel over at the coffee pots.
Mark
(if can get in UK)
