OT: Alkaline Battery Crud

Pulled an old TI-83 off the shelf and found the battery compartment mildly crudded,

Is the usual remedy the old vinegar on a swab method? ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Jim Thompson
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I've only used water.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

Vinegar works but I prefer to use 409 cleaner because it evaporates. I smear it around with an acid brush or paint brush. Any acidic cleaner will neutralize the Potassium Hydroxide electrolyte.

Note that this one suggests you *NOT* use water:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Jeff Liebermann

I like a pinch of "cream of tartar" (check the spice rack) and a few drops of water to make a thin paste. Really de-cruds the battery contact strips nicely. If a more aggressive cleaning is needed, substitute white vinegar for the water. Does have to be rinsed well, of course, whether water or vinegar is used.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

do you really believe 409 evaporates,and doesn't leave anything behind?

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Jim Yanik
jyanik
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Jim Yanik

Good idea. My wife has so many spices I had to create an indexing system for her ;-) ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Jim Thompson

Sigh. Nobody believes anything that I say.

409 does a better and faster job of evaporating than water or vinegar. Just to be sure, I just sprayed some on a horizontal piece of window glass. The puddle didn't evaporate very fast, but when I smeared it around with a clean brush, it disappeared very quickly. If there's any residue left, I can't see it.

When using 409 to dissolve off potassium hydroxide, there will undoubtedly be some residue left when the 409 evaporates. However, the residue is minimal. I don't just spray the battery terminals with

409 and walk away. I spray, break loose the crud with a brush, absorb the foamy mush with a sheet of towel paper, maybe some more 409, and then absorb the remaining liquid with more towel paper. When done, there's very little 409 left to evaporate. What residue remains is from what I missed during the cleaning, not from what was left behind after the 409 evaporates.

Incidentally, I have a fair collection of assorted cleaners and magic potions in my palatial office. When I return something I've repaired, it's always spotless and totally clean. Customers expect a spotless machine after a repair.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

They also think it works better when it's clean.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

My uncle Sheldon was a rascal. He had a TV repair business. The old TVs had a cover glass over the tube, and dust/smoke would get in there. His guys would make a house call, lament a bad picture tube, take it back to the shop. They'd Windex it and return it a week later with a big bill.

He had a shed full of electronics that he'd liberated from the Army, and an unlimited supply of dead radios and TVs. That was great fun.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   
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John Larkin

When I worked in TV, hi-fi, tape recorder, etc repair (1960's), we had a variety of similar tricks. That's when I learned to clean up the machine BEFORE attempting a repair. The big benefit is that all the dust (I use an air compressor) and dirt stays outside and off the bench. It keeps the shop much cleaner. The customers will even tolerate a bill for a failed repair if I clean up the machine. However, if I give the customer back their machine dirty, because I was in a rush, they will always (and I do mean always) grumble.

Uncle Sheldon's method works great on copiers, scanners, and some laser printers. Smoke, smog, and dust collect on the mirrors and optics, resulting in a fuzzy image or print. Open the machine, clean with microfiber cloth, and the image and print are now sharp. On my invoice, I bill for "optical cleaning and alignment", which sounds impressive enough to justify my exorbitant rates. The only real problem is that many copiers and printers are designed to make cleaning difficult. It's not unusual for me to remove all the side panels and many screws, just to gain access to the mirrors.

My main source of supplies in the 1960's was the Henry Radio (West Smog Angeles) dumpster and the trash bins behind various radio/TV repair shops. Carrying the booty back on the bus was a problem.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Jeff Liebermann

I ordered all the serious stuff (radar displays, transmitting tubes, photomultipliers, flashtubes, like that) from Fair Radio Sales. Post-WWII, all sorts of cool stuff was dirt cheap. A 931A or a radiosonde transmitter or a klystron was a buck or so. An entire under-wing radar pod was $75.

Fair is still in business. And they still have some of that WWII stuff!

Silicon Valley, and even SF, used to have surplus stores. Most of them have been pushed out by real estate costs.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
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John Larkin

$75 in 1968 is about $500 today's atrophied dollar. I bought much the same stuff in the 1960's. However, instead of importing it from Ohio, we had about a dozen great surplus stores in the Smog Angeles and San Fernando Valley areas. My favorite was JJ Glass, which was conveniently located near my father's lingerie factory and across the street from the local Black Panthers Temple. Piles and piles of really cool electronic junk. My parents were tolerant, until I dragged home a BC-645 IFF transponder with the thermite charge still inside. It was safely disarmed by the bomb squad, but that put a temporary end to my dragging home surplus junk.

When I escaped L.A. to go to college, I left all of the surplus electronics, chemical collection, strange contraptions, and junk behind. When the house was sold many years later, the new owners had some difficulties with the junk. They had heard the thermite "bomb" story from the neighbors and were rather hesitant to go thrashing about a potentially "explosive" pile of electronics. Eventually, someone arranged to have it removed as hazardous waste. I didn't hear the story until years later, when I Googled for my former address and found that it had been a candidate for the Superfund as a former ordinance disposal site.

It's like that almost everywhere. During the early 1970's my favorites were aircraft surplus stores that were usually located near airports. I think the real problem is that the demand for such surplus hardware is insufficient to justify the storage and handling costs. They're still out there, but most sell through eBay or an online store.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Jeff Liebermann

I used to get up at 4am on Saturday mornings to go to the Foothill Flea Market, with a flashlight, to bargain hunt before dawn. You'd run into Jim Williams, Bob Pease, Peter Alfke [1], and all sorts of strange people. Some old HP codger would die and his grandkids would empty his garage and haul it all to Foothill.

ebay mostly killed it.

[1] all three gone now. My head met Peter's head inside a box of old books. When we came out, he convinced me to use Xilinx FPGAs.
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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
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Reply to
John Larkin

There are hundreds of online surplus dealers on Ebay, if you take the time to look for them. Some actually sell for fair prices.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I have been buying more from a place called "electronic surplus". When I go to the lake next week I might pop in. Got an invite last year.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

Location?

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Mentor Ohio.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

You should check out Fair Radio in Lima and Mendelson's in Dayton. Those are the only two other that I know are still in Ohio. I left there about 25 years ago.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

The closest one to my house is hosfelt electronics Steubenville.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

go

Dayton used to have a half dozen good surplus stores.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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