Clean BNCs etc

Is there an easy way to get tarnished connectors clean? At my disposal currently I have ultrasonic cleaner, dishwasher, washing machine, and all sorts of chemicals. Scrubbing them manually is far too slow, I'm after something I can do quantity with.

NT

Look up how to remove tarnish from silver on Google. There are some tricks that do not require any manual cleaning AKA scrubbing.

Shaun

Dunking in vinegar or dilute HCL sometimes helps.

If they're tarnished, I'll assume that they are silver plated. Therefore, anything claiming to be some sort of "silver polish" will work. However, the best method is electrochemical. I used this on a silver plated microwave cavity with good results. This video shows how quickly it works: All you need is hot water, salt, baking soda, and some aluminum foil. Now that you reminded me, I have a box of old BNC, TNC, and N connectors that could use a cleaning.

However, methinks you really don't need to clean off the tarnish if you're doing RF. Silver oxide is as conductive as untarnished silver or possibly a better conductor. At RF frequencies, skin effect is the predominant means of RF conduction, which means a tarnished connector will work about the same as a clean connector.

I couldn't agree more! Any cleaning means removing the silver and at some point the silver plating will be gone.

Tarnish is silver sulfide. I don't think it's a good conductor.

Jeff's cleaning method is excellent - it works great on silverware. If I did it on bnc's I'd rinse them very very well afterward.

My mistake. It thought it was silver oxide.

"These predominantly silver sulfide tarnish films are semi-conductive at ambient temperatures, inherently soft, and relatively easily displaced with contact interface wipe at sufficient normal loads (Figure 5)."

I don't think this applies to BNC connectors.

Also, nothing is simple:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 21:58:48 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote as underneath :

Goddards silver dip (thiourea) gets rid of silver sulphide tarnish in about 20 seconds. Dont leave silver in the solution long over time, it will eventually dull the silver metal/plate. C+

Thankyou everyone. Whichever gets used, salt or acid, it will surely need a very good rinse.

NT

You should be able to go a long way towards drying the parts afterwards by dunking in meths then draining - for parts that have water traps - should that be an issue.

Maybe try some Tarn-X?

What is "meths"?

Methylated spirit.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

ethanol, plus tiny bits of methanol & dye

NT

The barrel makes electrical connection on the inner diameter, which is not visible; you could get a pipecleaner with isopropanol onto that surface, but not much else. The center pin isn't always silver, and probably is self-cleaning (by wiping) every time you insert the connector. So, the only reason to clean is cosmetic; you can get a circular bristle brush or nonabrasive nylon brush for a Dremel-type hand tool, and use that. Or not.

Yes, the reason is primarily cosmetic. And a tiny power brush is orders of magnitude too slow.

NT

We call it denatured alcohol. Easy to get in the winter as "dry gas".