Washing a chip

Before passing along the Arduino-to-PIC programmer, I needed to test it. My only PIC16F84A chip was buried in salt leaked from AA cells in my old Morse keyer.

Since salt should be solubile in water, I gave it a try: I washed the chip in warm water and in 5 minutes all pins were free.

Most electronic components are waterproof (ICs, resistors, capacitors, diodes) and will survive a bath in clean water just fine. Without power applied to them, obviously. Let them dry (or dry them by hand) and they should work again as before.

This was the case with my PIC16F84A, that confirmed the Ardpicprog is a good modern alternative to cheap JDM-style programmers. I loaded a simple "LED Chaser" firmware, whose visual effect is "so 80's", like RS232 technology.