What substance in the SNES's plastic causes it to go yellow?

The sun makes it go yellow. And cigarette smoke. Simple as.

 

Oh wait, I've just noticed a slight discoloration on my PAL SNES.

 

I have an SNES 2, and it hasn't turned yellow over the years, even with the Texas humidity.

My regular SNES, on the other hand...

 

*A little off topic* My mom promised me an SNES 2 years back... still havn't received it ...

 

Haha. I got mine from a friend, along with some crappy games. I use it as my main SNES now. In fact, I don't really do anything with my old gross yellowed one. I wonder if it works anymore.

 

Cool thing I saw once was my friends Sega Genesis and his 32x where in the sun constantly and after a while it got lighter and in the light was almost a purplish black. Kind of cool looking. THough he thought it was broken cuase it was fading in color and gave it to the goodwill...>_> owell.

 

Heat also causes it to turn yellow, in case you have it ontop of a TV or a monitor.

 

But the 1 million question is: is there a easy way to "clean" it back to white?

 

Could be a bad solder point.

 

Yes, heat too.... often a cause of monitor yellowing on PCs, even without much sunlight.

Ageing happens to most materils, unfortunately. If you don't want it to happen to something, lock it away in the dark!

 

Heat! Of course! That would explain the effect of sunlight as well, being that light is energy too.
In other words, the plastic breaks down faster with caloric energy - as it accelerates the chemical reaction. You could even say the plastic is burning at a VERY slow rate (if this chemical change does in fact involve oxygen). Meaning, also, that outside of sealing your SNES into a refrigerator room, there is no way to prevent yellowing, only to delay it - so it can be more gradual.
Well, there's always automotive enamel. I'll paint my old yellow Snes purple.

 

Keep that type of stuff in a well climatized room with 20% humidity, and a constant 70degrees farenheit.

 

Heat makes plastic extremely brittle. There are a few monitors where I work that are left in constant 120 degree (Fahrenheit, obviously) heat. It always scares me to replace them, since the plastic gives way whenever I pick it up. I've been careful enough so far, and luckily I don't have to deal with them very often.

The monitors are also usually a yellow colour by the time they're dead (90% of them are white when I put them up there).

 

Why has this topic re-surfaced, I answered this problem on the 1st page!!!!

 

You're just a popular guy!

 

Why is it always just half the SNES that yellows? I've noticed it seems to be mainly the bottom half.

 

The bottom is made of a different material than the top shell.

 

i have a gameboy cartridge piss edition

 

oh, you own donkey kong land too?

 

I have that cart floating around some where in my room...where, I don't know, but I have it fun game it is.