Water Proofing Electronics

mikebecher · Jan 26, 2017

It works like a charm. Here's a video of my rig going full submarine. Only the Holmes ESC is factory waterproof, the rest is protected as I described.

edit: I did this three times that day and not a single glitch was had during or after.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UZkghH0Lkx8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hardcoretam · Jan 30, 2017

About 5 years ago i decided to water proof all my electrics on my SCX10 with Liquid electrical tape & dielectric grease. I never ran it in the water though and it sat unused all that time.

I got it back out again recently and had found out all about Silicone Conformal coating but discovered i couldn't remove the liquid tape.
I took it out for some water fun regardless and seems to have all held up fairly well, but changing to a 100% waterproof ESC (Mtroniks) and putting the receiver & light board into a balloon with silicone to be 100% submersible all day, every day.

Light board
Liquid tape & dielectric grease on the plugs - also going to add a balloon

Reciever board
Liquid tape and case filled with dielectic grease - Also going to add a balloon

AE-2 ESC
Liquid tape & top of case filled with dielectic grease (don't recommend the grease, as mud sticks to it)

Turnigy 1501 Servo
I opened this after a long water run and the area where the circuit board is, was still dry even though there was only 1 gasket at the wire.
Water had ingressed into the gear area a little.
I don't recommend as much grease as this, or perhaps any at all as it caused the servo to be really slow for a long time after building it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj3dRcADZTo

Hardcoretam · Jan 30, 2017

After my post last night and cleaning my ESC, i noticed the liquid tape had came away from around the wires a little.
I decided to use a scalpal and remove some of the liquid tape. I noticed as some have mentioned, it hadn't properly bonded to some items and to my horror there was moisture in places despite it seeming very well sealed from the outside.

I've stripped all the liquid tape off the ESC, recevier (also had moisture under the coating) and cleaned them up with electrical cleaner and now applied silicone conformal coating instead.

Getting the dielectic grease out of the casings wasn't too easy either.

So no more liquid tape for me going forward.

mikebecher · Jan 30, 2017

Hardcoretam said:
After my post last night and cleaning my ESC, i noticed the liquid tape had came away from around the wires a little.
I decided to use a scalpal and remove some of the liquid tape. I noticed as some have mentioned, it hadn't properly bonded to some items and to my horror there was moisture in places despite it seeming very well sealed from the outside.

I've stripped all the liquid tape off the ESC, recevier (also had moisture under the coating) and cleaned them up with electrical cleaner and now applied silicone conformal coating instead.

Getting the dielectic grease out of the casings wasn't too easy either.

So no more liquid tape for me going forward.

Good you found it now! I had to learn this the hard way after frying an ESC and discovering moisture under the plastidip postmortem.

whitrzac · Jan 31, 2017

This is what you want to use
GE Silicone II 10.1 oz. Clear Kitchen and Bath Caulk-HD5040 24C - The Home Depot

It MUST be silicone 2. All others are acid cure and will damage circuits.

You can get smaller tubes at walmart for $3-4.

Hardcoretam · Jan 31, 2017

I've cleaned up all my boards with electrical spray and applied silicone conformal coating to try.
The heatsink popped off of my AE-2 so waiting on some thermal adhesive before i pop it on and put the case back together.

I've a Turnigy 5amp BEC i applied the conformal coating to, but going to put new shrink wrap over it and silicone sealant it at either side just to be sure.

I noticed the servo i waterproofed above as well some water had got into the gear area but none at all had got into the area where the reciever and board were despite the casing not having a gasket on the bottom section (Turnigy 1501)

My Axial light controler was the only thing that didn't have any moisture anywhere under the liquid tape coating but i done conformal coating to that as well, just to be sure.

JohnRobHolmes · Jan 31, 2017

Hardcoretam said:
After my post last night and cleaning my ESC, i noticed the liquid tape had came away from around the wires a little.
I decided to use a scalpal and remove some of the liquid tape. I noticed as some have mentioned, it hadn't properly bonded to some items and to my horror there was moisture in places despite it seeming very well sealed from the outside.

I've stripped all the liquid tape off the ESC, recevier (also had moisture under the coating) and cleaned them up with electrical cleaner and now applied silicone conformal coating instead.

Getting the dielectic grease out of the casings wasn't too easy either.

So no more liquid tape for me going forward.

You mind if I use this quote for educational purposes elsewhere? We are fighting against people using plastidip for this exact reason, and nobody believes the "hype" of real waterproofing products until it is too late!

Hardcoretam · Jan 31, 2017

JohnRobHolmes said:
You mind if I use this quote for educational purposes elsewhere? We are fighting against people using plastidip for this exact reason, and nobody believes the "hype" of real waterproofing products until it is too late!

Not at all, please do.

It was the comments from other people that made me check mines and i was lucky enough to catch it before anything died

Hardcoretam · Jan 31, 2017

For people running the silicone conformal coating, will that be enough for long term exposure to the water if items end up submerged now and then?

I've done all my parts with it now and they look well coated, thinking of putting some small electrical hobby boxes onto my rig so i can put the BEC, reciever and light board inside them and submerge it as often as i want without any issues.

mikebecher · Jan 31, 2017

Hardcoretam said:
For people running the silicone conformal coating, will that be enough for long term exposure to the water if items end up submerged now and then?

I've done all my parts with it now and they look well coated, thinking of putting some small electrical hobby boxes onto my rig so i can put the BEC, reciever and light board inside them and submerge it as often as i want without any issues.

I run the Holmes Torquemaster BR Mini which is literally just the board and a few wires, no case, no shrink wrap. I coated it with MG Chemicals 422B-55ML Silicone Conformal Coating. It gets wets regularly, submerged on occasion and frequently run very near the ocean. I've not had a problem in almost a year of running. I live in one of the rainiest places in the country (>120" per year) so my rigs live or die by their resistance to water.

Hardcoretam · Jan 31, 2017

Good to know, thanks!

It's wet about 80% of the year here in Scotland as well good to know it's as good as i hoped it would be. I don't regulary take it in the water, but it's nice to have the option to without worrying if you're going to ruin the rest of your day.

robertjpjr · Jan 31, 2017

Hardcoretam, as you saw in my Youtube video. The conformal coating has and is working 100%.
I live in Maine. We have lots of streams, snow, rain. I frequent the rocks near the ocean. No issues. I don't submerge my rigs all that often, but they certainly get wet enough. As a practice I hose my trucks off after a hard run. Its a nice and easy way to maintain a clean truck worry free.

asiddd · Jul 7, 2017

bluntbag · Jul 16, 2017

what did you use for this ? thanks

Sent from my LGLS775 using Tapatalk

Hydrocarbon92 · Dec 28, 2017

From my experience, liquid elec tape can work, but only as well as the user can prep for it. I will only consider it if it's a component w/o wires that need sealing, and only if I clean the entire surface with denatured alcohol. I have a few receivers that spent much of the last 2 summers getting dunked in fast elec boats prone to submarining. One I even stopped putting the hatch on. IMO it helps considerably if you cut it with some xylene to make it thinner (if xylene based). I recently had to pull the tape off 2 parts (the first I ever coated) but found no probs - they even had wires but were bundled and immobilized.

Now I'm coating everything with MG Chem urethane conformal coat. I scrub the parts with a cheap toothbrush and denatured alcohol, let them dry a day, then brush on a urethane coat once a day. So far I've only done 2 coats w/o issues on items that got dunked. I go fairly thin on the first coat to avoid bubbles but coat everything. The 2nd is fairly thick and mostly on the parts like regulators and microchips.

Derring-Do · Mar 8, 2018

Thanks for all the great information in this thread.

hutchinstuff · Apr 17, 2018

On a waterproof RX, is there any reason you wouldn't trust a properly conformal coated rx outside a receiver box? Outside of dirt and other grit getting in there....

QuesoDelDiablo · Apr 17, 2018

hutchinstuff said:
On a waterproof RX, is there any reason you wouldn't trust a properly conformal coated rx outside a receiver box? Outside of dirt and other grit getting in there....

Nope, as long as it's well coated and the plug port is filled with dielectric grease. I've got a couple buddies that run like that regularly.

I think it's actually better to have it out of the box then trapped inside a not quite waterproof box. Even a well coated Rx will fail if it's left submerged when the box fills up. Ask me how I know...

CGReload · Aug 23, 2018

Question for the Pros.

So I've seen some awesome videos where guys go half submerged in water. How do they do that without destroying their lipos?

JohnRobHolmes · Aug 23, 2018

Lipos are inherently water resistant by nature. The cells have to keep air out and keep volatile solvents in to be a stable battery, the pouches or cells are very well sealed in this regard. Unless the cells are put into an extremely high pressure or low pressure environment, you can consider them water proof. The plug (both power and balance) is the worst of your worries, it will corrode over time if not cared for occasionally with some cleaning and drying. If the battery uses a PCB to terminate the cells, corrosion can cause some self discharge or errors on the charge port. That's really the only worry.

Water Proofing Electronics

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