PS3+Borax water=junked-up disc slot. Help!

HoshiChiri · September 21, 2016

Hello, all! I have been asked to defer to the expertise 'round here to help my brother-in-law out. He was testing a method of diluting borax in water to make blacklight-reactive crystals for Halloween. He has learned the hard way that these crystals expand out, not up- the glass he had the water in shattered. Resulting in borax-laden liquid dripping down his entertainment center. (yes, he has been lectured on not leaving liquids above his electronics.) Unfortunately, his PS3 seems to have received the brunt of the borax-water. He's opened it up, cleaned out the innards, and tested an expendable disc... everything seems to work. EXCEPT- you know how PS3s have a bit of foam at the front to keep dust out? Yeah, it's trashed- hard, kinda gooey, and is clearly causing the system to have trouble ejecting discs (as well as scratching them.)

I have 3 main questions:

1) Is it possible to just buy a replacement foam strip? All they can find are complete drives, and while that would likely be better in the long run, it's completely out of his budget at the moment.

2)If you can't get fresh foam, how bad would it be to just remove the strip entirely?

3)Anything special he should be on the lookout for from borax-water drips into a PS3? I mean, crystal growth is an issue of course, but anything else?

Here's a pic (just for reference:)