Showerthought: I was dead wrong about compressed air cans being a scam

For years I thought buying compressed air was just throwing money away. I always used a brush or just blew into stuff myself to clean electronics. Then last month I had a PS4 that kept overheating after 30 minutes of use. I spent an hour trying to get dust out of the power supply area with a brush and got nowhere. Finally bought a $6 can of compressed air from a local shop and cleared the whole thing in under 2 minutes. The console ran cool for the first time in months. Has anyone else found a common tool they were sure was overpriced but actually works way better than the cheap way?

4 comments

4 Comments

mila_brown1013d agoMost Upvoted

Now I get it though @verawhite, same thing happened with my PC.

harper69313d ago

Used to think the same as wells.karen honestly, figured canned air was just moving dust around. Then I tried one of those compressed air cans with the little straw and actually blasted under my spacebar and it fixed my sticky key issue completely. Maybe I just got lucky but it totally changed my mind about them being a waste.

verawhite13d ago

I mean the same thing happened to me with keyboard dusters, game changer honestly.

wells.karen13d ago

Hard disagree here. Keyboard dusters are a total gimmick honestly. They just blast dust deeper into the cracks and switches, not actually cleaning anything. Then that dust clogs up the whole mechanism over time and your keys get sticky. Canned air is a temporary fix at best, you still have to take keys off and do a real deep clean eventually. People act like it's magic but it's really just moving the mess somewhere worse.