Preventing rust on NES Carts

Hello. I obtained some NES games that had rust spots on the cartridge pins. I used Brasso and removed almost all of it. The games tested fine. I examined the pins again a week later and noticed new rust developing again. Is there a way to prevent rust on NES cartridge pins? I contemplated using a very small amount of wd40 to prevent rust but I don't want to ruin the games/console. Any input would be appreciated.

 

I thought they are brass connectors so they can turn green. I would put a bit of wd40 on a cotton ear bud and rub it over the connectors.

 

The pins on the card edge connectors should be gold plated, silver plated, or tinned copper. What color was the rust?

I would steer away from using WD-40 for rust prevention on electronics or cleaning them, it can gum up over time and start collecting stuff. You're better off using something that's made for electronics, the "gold standard" at least for audiophiles and musicians is pretty much anything DeoxIT. They have products you would be able to use to both clean and protect the connectors.

 

This is no good for cart pins. The nes will have a very hard time getting a good connection if you use DeoxIT on it. Plain ol' Isopropyl Alcohol (70% is good enough) for cleaning cart edge pins is the way to go.

On a side note, don't blow into the carts, as that's a surefire way of introducing moisture, which in turn will cause rust and will deteriorate the insides of the cart.

EDIT: Check post by Retro.

 

Um why exactly? This is exactly the kind of thing some of their stuff is made for, they even have specific products for gold contacts. Isopropyl alcohol is good for cleaning and it will help displace any water. But it won't prevent it from happening again, and if you live by the ocean or a hot spring believe me it will happen. I just had to clean some oxides that had built up in a 2015 MacBook after being used indoors near the ocean for two years.

It's been awhile since I've done any chemistry but I would think that just mechanically cleaning it wouldn't be enough, you need to actually stop the reaction in order for it not to come back. For rust and oxidation that usually means some kind of acid, like vinegar. After cleaning with that then you would need to neutralize that acid with a base, like deionized water and baking soda. Then you're back to needing to coat it with something since this freshly cleaned metal will still oxidize.

You would only want to use the acid on whatever has oxidized, since it inevitably will remove a tiny amount of the metal.

Or in theory you can skip all that and just use what I mentioned before Now I kind of want to do a comparison of what works better for this kind of stuff.

 

i'm not taking sides i just want to share my experience with Deoxit. One of my first Neo Geo MVS Carts was Neo Drift Out , i tested it and found it would get slowdown around 7 times during a game session. I was like that's not right , so i cleaned the MVS Cart pins with a pencil rubber and IPA (high purity) and the problem still persisted. So again with that process and same problem , i happened to be google searching and found a highly reputable NeoGeo.com forums member recommending Deoxit.

so i bought some used it and the slowdowns stopped , i think the pins weren't getting good enough contact and the EPROMS couldn't function properly.

 

Oh sorry if I came off like a bit of a jerk, not what I was going for.

Do you remember which one you used specifically?

Looking at their site it seems to me the best combo would be to use their D-series cleaner for really bad oxidation then use their G-series stuff to protect the contacts long term and for any minor oxidation.

I've honestly never used either of those products though, I've only used their fader lube for faders and potentiometers which works great. Thus my high appraisal. But would not be good in this situation. It's pretty oily stuff so it would pick up all the dirt.

I'm curious if there are any homebrew versions of those, since that stuff is not cheap. Or if cleaning with vinegar and baking soda, then using their G-series would work just as well. That would make the price a little easier to bear.

Using salt with vinegar is supposed to work better then vinegar on it's own, but I'm not sure if I would really want to use that on electronics.

 

...

 

I ended up ordering something called CorrosionX. It's supposed to be safe for electronics and prevents new rust and corrosion from forming.

 

Sweet! Let us know how it works

 

Nonsense. It's a contact cleaner. Note also there are several different products in the range, designed for different jobs.

Don't use 70% on electronics - it's a disinfectant. Use the proper stuff. However, you should ideally use a contact cleaner. It doesn't have to be an expensive one.

 

I was unaware there were various types of deoxit, i'll be honest. IPA works good enough for me, hence why I recommend it. I'll have to try contact cleaner then. Cheers, and sorry for my bad information.

 

Personally, I find it far too expensive (and hard to obtain here in the UK) to warrant over a regular contact cleaner... and the choice is somewhat confusing. It is interesting that it's expensive even over there, though. Nothing wrong with a cheaper alternative, of course!