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Topic: Cleaning your carts

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Manji
rank 11
Posted:
Thu May 28, 2009 6:29 pm
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hello,

i have recently acquired a handful of N64 games and a couple of them dont want to play. ive never taken serious time cleaning the connector pins/contact points on my carts before, but i have heard and read about different ways to do that. rubbing alcohol, glass cleaner, brass polish, cotton swabs, eraser, steel wool, etc. and generally what works on one game cartridge will work on another one right? (SNES, NES, N64, Gameboy).

do you clean your carts and if so, what do you use?

Last edited by Manji on Fri May 29, 2009 9:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
 
lazybum
rank 10
Posted:
Fri May 29, 2009 9:35 am
quote : #2
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Yea I really need to clean some of my nes carts one day as well. I have heard that windex and rubbing alcohol work good to clean the pins and you could use like a q-tip to clean with. However, I have kinda been afraid to use alcohol or windex because I am afraid that maybe it will eat away at the pins, no one I have seen online really has a definite answer if it does or not. I don't want to start using it if it temporary fixes my carts but destroys them in the long term. I need to search more to find the best method.

N64 carts rarely give me any trouble though. I have a couple that take a few insertions and removals before they work , but these were former blockbuster rental carts that must have been abused a lot.
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gary_b
rank 9
Posted:
Fri May 29, 2009 4:06 pm
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i have always used rubbing alcohol or an acetone finger nail polish remover to clean the inside of my controllers and my game carts. so far i have not seen any evidence of it eating away at them. now if you was to use acetone and like soak the game cart in it you might find damage. but both acetone and rubbing alcohol evaporate so fast that it is unlikely to do damage. also use small amounts, dip the head of a q-tip in the liquid and wipe the dirty surface clean.


if you are really worried about it, test some cleaners on cheap games.
 
lordnikon
rank 47
Posted:
Fri May 29, 2009 8:24 pm
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I would stick to using rubbing alcohol. Using acetone is not advised. The stuff is pretty strong. I know because I used to work in my uncles golf shop for years and we use the stuff to strip and shine plastics. The acetone isn't going to eat away at the metal connectors, but it definatly could eat away at the chip boards. We used both Acetone, and a weaker version called a solvent for putting on grips and shining up ferriles (the small plastic things near the hozzel of a golf club). The stuff does evaporate quickly, so using it once isn't going to be a nightmare, but using it repeated times could cause damage to plastics. Not metals, but plastics.
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gary_b
rank 9
Posted:
Fri May 29, 2009 8:42 pm
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yeah i used to use it for work as well. we used strait acetone for making craps. it wont eat at plastic when used correctly. we dabbed a little on some paper towel to wipe away paint from the dice. but in my last post i was more or less talking about using fingernail polish remover that contains acetone. the stuff is mostly alcohol. but the acetone gives it an extra kick. im not sure i would recommend using strait acetone either. acetone is pretty strong shit. if you leave it on something it could very well damage it. but in small amounts its pretty harmless.
 
TheMytho
rank 15
Posted:
Fri May 29, 2009 10:26 pm
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I can vouch for the effectiveness of rubbing alcohol. Works like a charm and I have not noticed any long-term damage.

What I do is dip one end of a q-tip into a bottle of rubbing alcohol, run it across one side of the contacts until it is completely saturated in dirt, rotate to a clean side, then begin again until the entire end is caked in dirt/dust. Swipe the other end across to dry it out, then repeat for the other side. Let it sit and dry out for a few minutes or so.

Also, you have to make sure you get ALL the gunk out. Otherwise, you will be stuck in a cycle of powering on, getting an error, blowing and powering on again. Granted, it'll eventually work, but why not get the job done right the first time? Wink
 
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