"O" ring destruction.

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

> If ozone is causing O rings in your radio to deteriorate in two weeks,
> I would be very concerned about what the ozone is doing to your
> health! Anything that corrosive sounds like bad news.
> 
> I would seek a professional in the environmental space and get an
> opinion regarding the situation.  A local university would be a good
> start.

Bwaaaaaa ha ha ha! :-) That is particularly funny: I ***WORK*** at a 
University, and have had a long talk with our Safety Office about this. 
They did a LOT of testing and found that the ozone in our building, 
which contains a lot of labs, hoods, and chemistry labs is at a very low 
level, far below that which would harm humans.

Besides, I am quite familiar with the dangers of ozone, since that is 
ALSO part of my job at the University: i.e. anticipating, recognizing and 
taking care of this sort of danger.

In any case, the "O" rings and CD-ROM drive drive-belts are rapidly 
destroyed by whatever is in the air at work, and the same thing 
happens at home. Where, BTW, MY ozone level is also far below what 
would damage human beings.

Apparently the buna-rubber, or whatever the "O" rings are made of, is 
particularly susceptible to whatever is making them "go away".  What is 
happening is that they harden up or dry out, then start splitting across 
the narrow width of the ring or belt. After a while, they look as though 
they have been attacked by a madman with a tiny razor blade who is 
slicing most of the way through them across the "grain" so to speak. 
Then they break.

We still have not figured out what, exactly, is the problem, but our prime 
SUSPECT is ozone. So far, we have not come up with any other 
possible suspect....so far...

Kenneth G. Gordon W7EKB WC2XSR
Electronic Instrument Specialist, Sr.
University of Idaho
College of Science
Moscow, Idaho 83844-3025

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