1
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John
21
Asked
Is it Safe to use Isopropyl Alcohol to clean cartridges?
I want to clean the contact points on my old NES Carts. I thought to do this with a little bit of Isopropyl Alcohol (Rubbing Alcohol) and a Q-Tip, or perhaps a micro-fiber cloth.
I don't think this would damage the board, but the NES Carts have a label on the back that tell you not to do this so I am a bit hesitant to try it.
3
Score
James Stoy
831
Answered
Accepted Answer
well if you open up the cartridge you can see how dirty they are generally, if they are REALLY dirty then yes it's fine to use alcohol on it and Q-Tip's (is that an American thing?) we call them cotton buds in the UK ;p
Another good method is using a pencil eraser on them, i've done that a good few times, just make sure there is no eraser shavings left on the cart anywhere.
+ I would not have know what cotton buds were, thanks. Cotton buds around here are what pop out just before the bolls appear and the weevils come ;-)
Great - I just wanted a second opinion before I went ahead and did it myself! Haha yah 'Q-Tips' are what they are generally called in at least my area of the US...'Q-Tips' being the name of the company - I guess I could have called them "Cotton Swaps". Haha
John,
Yeah cotton swabs is another word we use here :), but looking at Q-Tips on wikipedia, the guy who invented them actually went on to found the company Q-Tip so i guess Q-Tip is the correct wording for them and my "cotton bud" is just a cheap UK imitation ;p Good luck John, i hope your game works now :)
2
Score
Answered
Hi folks,
Nintendo Repair Shop repair tech here. While using rubbing alcohol won't hurt your games (unless you absolutely douse them in it), using alcohol and a qtip is really not an effective cleaning method.
Nope, we only sell our own products through our site. Craigslist is a good venue for selling your own stuff though. We have several free repair guides that show how to clean NES, SNES and N64 games the right way. Hopefully you guys find these useful.
I saw what he was doing with that. Just felt it was flawed. As far as I can tell, this isn't his site. Not to mention, the information we just put up will help more people with this issue than anything posted in this area thus far. We aren't just peddling goods. We have a real solution that we offer at a very reasonable, competitive price along with free repair guides that we have posted on this site as well as ours, you tube, etc.
I like your site it's a good source of information that will help a lot of people and the prices are competitive.. however, you are glorifying the cleaning process way above what is acceptable when people come to this site, they want a quick and easy way of getting their old games to work, thus opening it up and cleaning it with alcohol and a QTip. They dont want to spend $ on something they could do for cents.
1
Score
Justyn Zachariou
249
Answered
0
Score
Jon Fukumoto
79
Answered
It's not recommend to use a pencil eraser to clean the contacts of the cartridge. The eraser is abrasive, meaning that if you continue doing this, you'll eventually rub off the gold coating the contacts, making the problem worse. You can use alcohol and a cotton swab to clean the contacts, but NEVER use a pencil eraser.
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Score
Answered
I'm pretty sure you mean "Isopropyl" alcohol, Isopropyl relates to the hydrocarbon, whereas "isotopic" refers to varying masses of the same element based upon different numbers of neutrons.
rab777hp,