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I was wondering if anyone can give some advice as to the best way to handle the aftermath of 32-electrode connectors accidently being dropped into water during cleaning. What is the likelihood that there will be damage to the entire set, how long should we wait before testing if the set works and is there anything we can do to make it more likely there will not be damage to the entire set?

Thanks for your help

Rinse with distilled water, and then with alcohol (ethanol), let dry completely (a day or so), and everything will be OK again. Before using on a subject, test the set as described in http://www.biosemi.com/faq/check_electrodes.htm.

Best regards, Coen (BioSemi)

Hi Coen, thanks very much for the quick reply and advice, greatly appreciated!

I also accidentally dropped a few EX (2-pole TP) connectors and a CMS/DRL (4-pole DIN) connector in water today. I rinsed them almost one hour after the accident with distilled water first and vodka afterwards (I don't have any ethanol available, and vodka is the closest I have). I've left them to dry out and will test them after the week-end. Do you think they will be OK? Will it be safe to connect them to the amplifier when they've dried out? What kind of damage could happen to the connectors, corrosion?

You did the right thing, contacts are gold plated, no fear for corrosion.

Best regards, Coen (BioSemi)

Thanks. I did the bucket test today, the electrodes seem fine, the CMS led stayed solid blue. The electrode offsets were quite high for some electrodes during the bucket test (and waveforms were drifting in the display) but this is a set of modified gold-plated electrodes, the high offsets may be related to that rather than to the connectors being dropped in water.

Gold is indeed a worse electrode material than Ag-AgCl: higher offsets and more noise and baseline drift.

Best regards, Coen