"Waterproofing" Your Reefing Electronics

[trevorhiller]

I recently had a near miss with one of my year old MP40s. I had some saltwater dripping down the side of the tank and naturally it landed right on top of the MP40 controller in the cabinet. Fortunately, I noticed it before it got into the case or the connectors.

It got me looking at ways to make my reefing gear more water resistant though. I found a couple products that look interesting for those who don't have an isolated sealed electronics cabinet.

Conformal coating - Similar to potting compound. It can be painted on the PCBs (circuit boards) to protect them from salt spray/salt water. It goes on similar to clear nail polish and keeps the salt away.



Dielectric grease - A non-conductive silicone grease that can be added to electrical plugs to prevent water damage and corrosion.



Potting compound - this is the black liquid epoxy that can be used to encase things. I believe it is similar to what Tunze uses on their motor blocks to seal them up.


The conformal coating and dielectric grease look pretty easy to apply, the potting compound is more extreme as its rather permanent, but still might have some cool DIY reef tank applications.

I've also thought about perhaps putting a little Molykote around the seams of some of electronics control boxes in case of any accidental drips.

I'm curious if anyone has used any of these things on their reefing gear to prevent accidental damage or taken any other waterproofing/salt spray precautions.

 

[CasperOe]

I keep all electronics possible above tank water level to avoid just this Nothing is perfect, I have to consider moisture from evaporation in stead.

I battle that with a lid and some fans.

Will be interesting to see what you end up doing

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I lost a wavemaker controller exactly like that a few years ago. I also woke up once to my power bar smoking and sparking because water ran down the line to the power bar.

For safety sake, everyone should put a drip loop on all their wires, it can save your equipment and your home.

 

[trevorhiller]

I lost a wavemaker controller exactly like that a few years ago. I also woke up once to my power bar smoking and sparking because water ran down the line to the power bar.

For safety sake, everyone should put a drip loop on all their wires, it can save your equipment and your home.

For sure good good advice and I do have them along with my EB832 in waterproof box.



I keep my controllers in the dry side cabinet of my cade though, and they still get some water splashes every once in a while.

I keep all electronics possible above tank water level to avoid just this Nothing is perfect, I have to consider moisture from evaporation in stead.

I battle that with a lid and some fans.

Will be interesting to see what you end up doing

I ordered some dielectric grease & corrosion spray. I'm going to research the conformal coating a bit more, but I think I might try it out on some out on the wavemaker controller boards that are out of warranty.

 

[trevorhiller]

So I ended up ordering all three of them. The corrosion spray is very petroleum/VOC heavy. I don't think I would spray it inside the house again- I'd skip that one now that I know what it is. I imagine that it would be more useful for spraying hinges/screws/hardware on a tank stand before the tank is up and running. It leaves an "amber" film (per the instructions). I'll keep this for my non-aquarium tools.

The dielectric grease is nice though and probably something everyone could use. I went through and applied it to all the 120 volt connectors in my Cade stand. The cade has a shield around the DJ power bar, but it still gets a lot of indirect salt spray on it. Everything is working normally post-application and I intentionally applied it heavily.

My goal with this is cheap insurance to prevent electrical arcing and corrosion with the connectors. I can't be certain it will accomplish that goal, but for $20, its peace of mind and sure doesn't hurt anything. The tube will likely last a long time because you don't need much to coat a standard power plug's prongs.

I think the dielectric grease would be really beneficial for any 120 volt power strips near your sump (think EB832 connectors).

I haven't used the conformal coating just yet, but I'll update once I've tried that on a PCB.

 

[BeanAnimal]

You have to be careful with potting and conformal coatings, they can trap a lot of heat.

 

[trevorhiller]

You have to be careful with potting and conformal coatings, they can trap a lot of heat.

Yeah this why I've held off on using the conformal coating so far. I'm still researching components to avoid.

I did get the silicone one which has the highest temperature rating, but I'm thinking it would only be low risk on wavemaker control boards that are low voltage.

I took the temperature reading on an MP40 controller PCB and got around 92 degree F at peak so it doesn't run very hot.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Also, adding dielectric grease to a tight connection where there is good contact is ok. But, it does not make connections better and is in-fact and insulator. That means it can create resistance and poor contact on otherwise loose connections.

 

[laverda]

I use dielectric grease on all electrical connections around my aquariums. I also put a bit in unused USB, cat 5 connections and electrical recpticals to keep them clean for future use. Without the grease 5 years down the road, when you try to use something many will be too corroded to use.
Electrical contact cleaner can clean contacts if not too far gone.

 

[trevorhiller]

I use dielectric grease on all electrical connections around my aquariums. I also put a bit in unused USB, cat 5 connections and electrical recpticals to keep them clean for future use. Without the grease 5 years down the road, when you try to use something many will be too corroded to use.
Electrical contact cleaner can clean contacts if not too far gone.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

Have you run into any issues with the dielectric grease?

I’m surprised this isn’t more common practice with aquarium electrical cords as it’s so easy & cheap to apply.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I lost a wavemaker controller exactly like that a few years ago. I also woke up once to my power bar smoking and sparking because water ran down the line to the power bar.

For safety sake, everyone should put a drip loop on all their wires, it can save your equipment and your home.

This was the first thing I did when setting up my wires was having a drip loop

 

[trevorhiller]

Just updating this thread:

Everything I’ve used the conformal coating and dielectric grease on has worked just fine.

Tonight I coated the boards next to the cuvette in the trident. My trident has been acting up so I took it apart and cleaned the lines out. I figured while I’m in there I’d waterproof the boards that are prone to failure when there is an overflow from the cuvette.

I think this is a great use case for this water proofing strategy and could easily be done by the Neptune factory to correct this design flaw. I coated all the exposed metal on the wires/pins with dielectric grease and coated the boards themselves with the conformal coating. The only thing I avoided coating was the led and and photo sensor which shine through the cuvette.

While the coating is clear, I didn’t want to interfere with the test results by diminishing the light transmission (although I suspect a calibration would adjust it accordingly—those parts looked sealed anyway so it wasn’t worth the risk to me).

My trident is reinitializing now, I’ll post back if there are any issues but everything appears to be working fine.

This might be a cheap preventative strategy to keep your trident from shorting out if the curette overflows due a clog.