Cleaning corroded cartridge slot.

I just received a Sega genesis Model 2 with a very rusty connector. Many of the pins are covered in greenish rust and all are at least quite tarnished.

Normally i would go about with water and baking soda, toothbrush, Credit card + cloth and finish with lubricated contact cleaner.

How would you guys deal with this type of corrosion?

 

I avoid water and prefer to use alcohol. For heavy duty cleaning, try Electrical Contact Cleaner.

 

Try some sand paper,it's worked for me before.

 

I used 1200 grit sand paper on some N64 carts that had bad corrosion. They work great now but it is very, very obvious that the protective layer is gone from the gold fingers and now raw copper is exposed. If you live anywhere near salt water you may find the poor things will corrode again.

Anyone know how plastic handles being in an electroplating solution? It'd be trivial for me to electroplate these things at home with a thin layer of copper.

 

Ok i finished the cleaning and it was a tough job but I can say that now the Genesis 2 VA4 works 100%!

I started off by brushing off the crust with Baking soda + water, then rinced then dried. Then i used some contact cleaner and a cartridge to rub it in.
The genesis still did not work. It must be said however that this connector was VERY corroded, one of the worst case i have seen. Dont know what happened to it since beside this, the console was great condition.

The connector still looked somewhat tarnished, what i did is i took some small grain sandpaper, folded it and inserted it in the slot a few times to remove the corrosion. Then i took ultrafine Steel wool and wrapped it around my credit card. I rubbed it in the connector for a while, this kind of steel whool is very soft and is mostly used to polish brass stuff. It worked great!! The pins looked nice and shiny after Sandpaper + steel whool. I then applied Lubricated contact cleaner to protect the pins from further corrosion and Bam!! All my games worked on the first try

Edit:

Yoy should try the ultrafine steel wool for cartridges, it removes the corrosion and gives a nice polished finish, not harsh enough to remove gold plating.

 

I recommend magic eraser to cleaning contacts, it removes tarnish and corrosion, but not the gold coating. Works great, I've had many games resurrected with it before. It works best if you wet the eraser with isopropyl alcohol instead of water, but if you don't want to use so much isopropyl alcohol, you can use water, so long as you quickly dry it then give it a scrub with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud.