Yahoo Groups archive

Homebrew PCBs

Index last updated: 2026-04-09 22:20 UTC

Message

HCl - a cautionary tale!

2004-06-23 by leon_heller

I was etching a PCB a few minutes ago. I thought I'd beef up the 
FeCl3 with a little HCl so I went in the other room, got the bottle 
and opened it. On my back to the kitchen sink where I was doing the 
etching I tripped, splashed a little of the HCl into my face (luckily 
the cap was still partly on) and dropped the bottle. A little of the 
acid went into my left eye so I put my head under the tap and flushed 
the eye out thoroughly. Of course, I shouldn't have removed the cap 
until I was at the sink. I suppose I ought to get the eye checked, 
but I can see perfectly out of it, although it's a little sore, so I 
won't bother. The effect was like peeling onions, but a *lot* worse. 
Onions generate H2SO4 when the juice gets into the eyes, same sort of 
effect.

It's 30% HCl, BTW, quite concentrated.

Leon

Attachments

Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.