Best way to clean the console?

[+Propane13]

It's been awhile. Curious what the best way to clean my console cartridge-port is.

 

-John

[Trebor]

It's been awhile. Curious what the best way to clean my console cartridge-port is.

 

-John

 

RevEng provided some good direction on this relatively recently.

 

The information is pasted below for convenience:

 

Clean the carts themselves with 99% isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip, cotton swab, cotton, or whatever.

 

You can do a quick clean of the port by saturating a clean cart edge with alcohol and inserting a few times. Wait enough time for the alcohol to evaporate, and test to see if things are better. Repeat a few times if they're not.

 

A more involved clean can be done by taking an old plastic card with a layer of cotton, soak the edge in alcohol, and use that to clean the contacts.

 

In terribly gone cases, very fine grit sandpaper can be wrapped around a plastic card and used to abrade the contacts, to get rid of oxidation. Blow out the dust. This one is a last resort as it removes plating on the contacts, but truthfully the plating was probably worn away years ago.

[78001987]

Armor All... *ducks*

[+Propane13]

With regards to the "taking an old plastic card with a layer of cotton, soaking the edge in alcohol" method:

This may sound stupid, but how is this done, specifically?

 

I'm picturing an old credit card (which I don't think will fit), and I'm not sure where to find a layer of cotton that's referenced (maybe gauze)?

I used to have something like what's mentioned in an old cleaning kit, but I'm curious how to do this with specific household materials.

 

-John

[Jinks]

I have used cereal box cardboard with a bit of alcohol dipped on the end for console ports. Frosted flakes makes it grreat! Seems to work..

And qips and alcohol for carts.

[RevEng]

A credit card will work, but yes, you'll need to trim it to fit.

 

For cotton, use and old t-shirt or whatnot. It really doesn't matter where you get it - the goal is to create an alcohol absorbent surface that can pushed into the slot and will wipe the contacts. The card and cotton should be roughly as thick as a PCB.