Another Moisture Question

[Steelheader]

I live in an area that recieves 85-100" of rain a year. I tried using the moisture evaporator on my very first customer's WS yesterday. I put the evaporator on the breaks 2 times on the first repair, and 3 times on the second repair, for 20 seconds each cycle. How do you know when all the moisture has been evaporated? One break was a combination break that would not fill the longer legs. I attributed that to moisture. Was I correct? And the second one was a half moon. I tried drying this one with 3 cycles of the evaporator. The repair "flowered" out in between the glass and laminate. I need to know how to properly dry out these breaks, since I live in such a wet climate.

[Delta Kits]

If the repair flowered, it wasn't allowed to cool between cycles. 20 seconds per cycle, allow to cool, reapply if water is still present. Water makes it look like a partially filled break, or if you look closely and probe, you can see movement in the break.

[Glasseye]

I would suggest you practise this procedure on a scrap windscreen until you get the feel of just how long to apply heat. Using different types of breaks and varying lengths of exposure to the dryer. One thing I have found is to use the same power source for my m.e. ( a portable charger). Plugging it into the vehicles own adaptor can vary the amount of power and increase/decrease the temperature of the m.e.

[Steelheader]

Thanks for the advice Jeff.

Glasseye, I also use the portable battery from DK. It looks like I did what Jeff said. I probably didn't allow the glass to cool enough before doing the repair.

[Mr Bill]

You are not letting the glass cool between heating cycles.
Apply heat for 20 secs. Then let it cool.
Repeat if necessary. Make sure you let it cool each time
Too much heat made it flower.

[sgailey]

How do you know when all the moisture has been evaporated?

Sometimes it can be tough to tell, even if you're flexing. Be sure to look at the fracture from several different angles. Moisture, if there's a lot of it, will look blurry and grayish from certain angles. But there's always exceptions:

I just had similar a problem with moisture on a friend's windshield this weekend. It was a bullseye break, not more than a few days old, I put it through two cycles with an evaporator for 20 seconds each.

After 5 lengthy pressure cycles, an outer area of the break still refused to fill. I called it finished and cured it. Once the bridge was off, the break became more visible from the front, and the stubborn outer area that had appeared dark when viewed from the inside now looked blurry. :eusa_wall