On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 05:36:18PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Distilled water *is* virtually non-conductive. It's only the salts and impurities in tap water (and/or river water etc.) that make it moderately conductive.
It's not only the salts. There is some natural ionisation that will result in free H+ and OH- ions. You can't really escape that so even mineral free ultra pure water in a perfectly sealed sterile container (of a material that won't release minerals as the water desperately tries to leach them) will still be *slightly* conductive.
Also pretty much as soon as it came into contact with the guts of a PC it will absorb enough minerals to become conductive rather quickly if it hadn't already done so in the cooling loop of a cheap Watercooling system.
Yes, agreed, but you'd be surprised what a high resistance even tap water has. People think that water is 'conductive' like metals but is isn't. Many simple low voltage devices will work quite happily under water for a while though sensitive electronics won't of course. For example electric motors and such just carry on (a bit slower) under water, at least for a few minutes until damage to bearings and such sets in.