Your cleaning agent

[fabrice montupet]

For each arrival then every years , all my vintage materials are unmounted, following a calendar for each of them. I control and clean all the electronic of each boards and power supplies. That applies for all computers, CRT monitors and expansions. I do all I can to preserve and sustain my vintage materials. Most of them have thirty years old or more. I think that it is the only way to keep them alive the most longer. From time to time, I repair some electonic boards of old computers' friends who have left aside on a shelf or in a box for years and fail due to a lack of maintenance. A long period of non-utilisation/non-verification is not good for them.

For the controls, I use a multimeter and a logic analyser. That's OK. For the cleaning, my agents are 3M and KF Professional chemical contacts cleaners specific for electronic (aerosol). They do a very good job. But sometimes they are not enough for the first cleaning of a material newly acquired due to a long periode of a non-cleaning by the former owner: some sediment spots of oxydation resist to all these cleaners. Even a treatment with a ultrasonic cleaner is not sufficient. The only solution that I have found to remove these residual spots of oxydation is to use a...rubber eraser for ink! and it works fine. For the ICs mounted on a support, there is no problem because I unmount these IC to clean the outside and inside of each IC pins, but when the ICs are soldered, I can only clean the outside pins without being able to control the inside.
Even if the general result of my cleaning is good (the boards look like new), I would like to go even further.

 

So, I would like if someone knows a even more efficient than the 3M Scotch 1625 and KF F2 cleaners that I use. Thank you for all cleaning agent you could tell me.

[fabrice montupet]

There are some points of control that permits to prevent some future failures. And controlling regularly vintage material don't take a long time (15-20 mn max). For example, it takes less time to isolate an unstable component of a PEB power supply than having to repair the boards of this same PEB that have been destroyed because of the blowing up of the power supply.

 

All my TI hardware is used heavily, many many hours per week. This 30 years old hardware was not designed to last that long. All components have long exceeded their usage limit. Everyone does what he wants, I just made the choice of prudence and the respect for this very old material. Now, if you find that my choice is the mental health clinic domain, it doesn't matter to me, I can live with that.

[fabrice montupet]

An example among many others:

 

Here are some pictures of a computer that I received from a guy in 2011, it stayed 25 years forgotten on a basement shelf.

 

And after a long and deep cleaning, the replace of dead components, the computer went back to life :

 

We are in 2018 and this computer, regularly maintained, is still working :-)

[+Ksarul]

That cleaning turned a monster into a thing of beauty, Fabrice. . .

[iKarith]

I don't know of a better contact cleaner, but other than contact cleaners rated for electronics, the only thing I use on PCBs is 90%+ isopropyl alcohol. I'm willing to use other things on non-PCB elements. Window cleaner gets a fair amount of use. Baking soda sometimes for cleaning textured plastics, though you have to go slow and easy since baking soda has some abrasiveness.

[fabrice montupet]

Thank you for your answer. Yes, IPA makes a good job. It is what I use with the ultrasonic cleaner. But, sometimes it's not sufficient.

[fabrice montupet]

@Jim: Thank you !

[Omega-TI]

An example among many others:

 

Awesome job there! With your skills in restoration and building custom units, you could open up a retro computer museum.

[Opry99er]

Holy cow, that thing went from the dumpster to the showroom!!!

 

 

90% iso alcohol.... I use it for just about everything... if there is something particularly nasty on a card or PCB edge, I will use a pencil eraser to get off the offending nastiness.

[Keatah]

Nice cleanup there. I stick to the basics, soap and water and DeOxit contact cleaner, and reserve the specialty chemicals for the specialty cases. I try to never let my classic material get out of hand.