Any idea what this stuff that came out of an IC was? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2014, 08:02:52 pm
content: Something interesting just happened, I had an ancient (believe me) ancient Ethernet hub sitting around, not much useful except the power jacks and maybe the plastic guide for the LED's on it, so I figured for the hell of it I may as well over volt it, it's always a bit of fun., sometimes when the chips blow you also get a nice look inside at them, I've had the entire top pop off of some of them.Anyways, this one just had a crack in it, but interestingly there was some sort of brown liquid, not much, but a bit that came out of it. Any idea what it would be? I can't really think of anything, but I don't really know much about chip production techniques or anything like that. Maybe it had flux inside to keep bond wires from oxidizing as they sealed it up?

author: houdini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2014, 08:11:18 pm
content: A lot of those Ethernet cards have a big tall chip that if you crack open has four tinny ferrite cored inductors. The liquid could be the sealant for these, wax or something similar.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2014, 08:16:18 pm
content: Quote from: houdini on April 20, 2014, 08:11:18 pmNo, this was from a small fairly flat quad flat pack, there aren't any chips big enough for inductors on this thing, or if they are they would be extremely tiny, and those chips are intact.

author: 128er
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2014, 08:40:23 pm
content: Once upon a time . . .I had an old drive from a harddisk. And i thought it would be a stepper. So i hooked it up to a L293. The IC was very hot and at the sides of the package the same brown snot as you described. From this point, i measured the windings of my drives very preciselyLong story short...I'm also interested. I guess it's some type of molten package plastics

author: jlmoon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 03:12:59 am
content: Thats Liquid Smoke of course!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 04:30:56 am
content: My guess is that it's condensed form of the vapour from the epoxy/plastic packaging. Normally it would just disappear into the air with the smoke, but as it had to travel through a narrow crack from the overheated part to get out, it cooled off and became liquid.

author: codeboy2k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 09:08:44 am
content: Be careful playing with chemicalsanything falling off you yet ??

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 09:27:56 am
content: There wasn't a slug inside was there?That was the reason for the brown liquid that came from one of my powerpoints a while back.

author: electronics man
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 09:53:54 am
content: What that liquid is the stuff that's normally in all Chips, normally if a chip frays it becomes the wight smoke

author: codeboy2k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 10:17:45 am
content: Quote from: Psi on April 21, 2014, 09:27:56 amI had an ant's nest inside one of my power points once (yes, ants not termites).. there was a queen and she was laying eggs.. I didn't know it, everything looked fine , then one day I pulled out an appliance plug that has been in there forever... All the ants came running out of the socket holes and up, down all over the wall... and each one carrying a white egg... Awesome

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 10:56:32 am
content: Well, yknow looking at it later, the spot where I rubbed it away to see if it was indeed liquid, it looks sort of oily, maybe it is sort of a condensed version or some of the stuff that causes smoke.Quote from: codeboy2k on April 21, 2014, 10:17:45 amAt least it wasn't spiders.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2014, 01:56:21 pm
content: Magic smoke, in condensed liquid form. It smells like burnt electronics, right?Tim

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 04:59:43 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on April 21, 2014, 01:56:21 pmI guess.Maybe we can harvest it to make magic smoked beef jerky, mmm.