Alkaline Battery Leak Cleanup

If it's not already filled with minerals or salts as all normal water is, it will absorb them from whatever it touches- if they're soluble in water.

There's quite a bit of stuff dissolved in tap water- enough to ruin lead acid batteries, leave water spots on glasses and photographic film and to destroy electronics if left to dry in place.

I wrote a page on this years ago when pinball game and jukebox computers were being corroded by leaky alkaline batteries (ni-cads or AA alkalines). At the time (mid-90s) I called up one of the help lines for either Eveready, Duracell, or some such company and they passed me up to an engineer who stated that the best way he knew to deal with the alkaline was to use a mild acid solution - white vinegar and water 50:50 was about ideal - soak the item with that, then rinse well with distilled or low mineral water.

John :-#)#

As far as I can determine, the only real difference between the Caig DeOxit product and the original Cramolin is that Cramolin contains about 5% oleic acid, whilc DeOxit does not. Oleic acid will remove oxidation products quite nicely, but should not be left on copper or brass contacts, which it will eventually corrode.

The current version is DeOxit from Caig Labs. It comes in an amazing variety of forms, and is allegedly non-corrosive.

The MSDS data shows the active ingredients as a "trade secret". Oh well.

Google MSDS for CLR and see what it is. Mild acid plus other stuff.

I never really tried it, but someday I'll find a use, for the old copper impregnated grease from Germany. Reddish in color, of course.

Greg

If I could clean it off, I might try tarn-x, acidified soapy water.

Greg

Not sure it's related, but german vehicles seem to have plenty of electrical problems, ranging from harness fires to simple stuff like headlight connectors burning out. They just don't get it.

I'd steer clear away from anything german+automotive+electrical.

It seems like the formulation for CLR changes by the week.

it's basically lactic acid at this point. The removed the good stuff from it.

In the U.K., Volvo use mainly German electrics. The components aren't all that bad but the overall system looks as though it was designed by someone on a 'work experience' course having a bad day.

It's not a large pool of data, but work on some machines that were made in West Germany as well as the US version that were completely designed and made in the USA just after that, around 1990.

The german stuff is as you'd expect, overly complex with everything on din rails, but lots of tiny ones, there's stuff cabled tied up to the point you can't trace anything and lots of the cables aren't even labelled. And of course, since it's german, they use slotted screws for everything so everything is marred up from screwdrivers slipping all over the place.

They do still work, with mostly new timers and relays.

The american stuff is far superior. There's just one control board, everything is marked and the nothing is 5 times too large because stuff isn't forced to clip onto those rediculous DIN rails. They also decided to not put half the relays on the control board, the other half on the inside of the control panel and rest somewhere else.

It's just a more thought out design.

You have insulted meine Vorvatern.

Some years back, a neighbor asked me to help troubleshoot his Volkswagen Golf. He had the service manual for several models, and we were definitely looking at the right model, but we could not trace one of the wires -- the one that seemed to be causing the problem.

Finally applying the Holmesian rule that, once you're eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be true, I suggested we look at the schematics for other models -- and lo and behold, it turned out that the one for the Golf was the wrong schematic.

So much for "German precision".

If it's a machine and has moving parts, they're pretty good at stuff. If it's more abstact, like with electricity in wires or software, they're lost.

japanese companies seem completely unable to product working software either for some reason, unless it's a video game.

How people are raised to think and operate seems to vary like crazy between countries, even though nobody will admit it.

I've really wondered why this is the case. It's not like the rest of the world only produces top notch softare, but it's all better overall.

weird russian software cracking utilities are made with more finesse than some big ticket programs from Hitachi, a company with more money than the russian mafia could even dream of defrauding from anybody. I'd run out of fingers pointing out glaring errors or UI anomolies in just a 45 seconds with this one program alone.

I'd make an exception with Rohde & Schwarz test equipment. Every piece I've ever used or worked on was very well made.

Grease is normally a tolerable insulator. Many rotating devices are capable to generating sufficient static electricity to create small spark between the bearing surfaces. That eventually pits the bearings and causes failure. To prevent arcing, greases are often made conductive by adding graphite.

However, for applications where the bearing is expected to actually conduct some current and/or some heat, copper is used. You can get it at the auto shop as anti-seize:

or:

Lots of applications. I sometimes use it for lubricating the bearings or bushings in adjustable capacitors and potentiometers.

Note that there are different types of copper used. For non-lubricating applications, random dust is fine. For anything that moves or requires electrical conductivity, flakes are required. You can test for which one with an ohm-guesser. The dust is not conductive. The flakes overlap and are therefore conductive.

If you care to get more chemically correct ammonia is a weak acid.

?-)

It is actually physics as much as chemistry. It is largely due to the slightly bent shape giving the molecule modest polarity combined with strong hydrogen bonding capability. Superpure water used in several applications like drug manufacture and semiconductor manufacture is known to dissolve all metals and almost all plastics including PTFE Teflon.

Many good chemists call it the ultimate solvent for good reason.

?-)

Volkswagen

definitely

the

the one

than

the

of

See the Whorf - Sapir hypothesis.

?-)

I will leave that alone for the moment.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjugate_acid

It's been almost 50 years since I took high-school chemistry. I was good at it, but don't remember much about conjugate acids.

On Tuesday, September 25, 2012 12:29:02 PM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote: > The current version is DeOxit from Caig Labs. It comes in an amazing

Those 'forms' are mainly volatile solvents, the residue is the same old stuff.

It isn't much of a secret; the patent dates back to late sixties; it's a liquid semiconductor that makes a tenacious film/coating.