NES Console & Cartridge Cleaning

CMGTGuy

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So I picked up an NES lot off Craigslist (5 consoles, Controllers & Zappers, Powermat, 100+ games). Most of the consoles are pretty dirty and need to be cleaned. Haven't had a chance to test the consoles, but I started testing games and most won't come up. So I have a few questions:

What's the easiest way to cleanup consoles & carts without damaging them?

If stored in heat for too long are these games fried?

Any good advice on cleaning contacts?

Any other advice on how to test games quickly?

Thanks for any help you can provide.
 
You can still pick up the NES cleaning kit off of ebay or save yourself the hassle and buy a new 72 pin connector from culsum. It's a 5 minute swap and the ijstructions are pretty thorough.

The carts can be cleaned with a high concentrate rubbing alcohol and a qtip, but if they are really dirty I recommend using an old flat eraser. Cut it down so itfits in the slot. Just make sure to remove the debris.

It would take a lot of heat to kill those.

That's the best advice I have.
 
My suggestion is to not replace the connector, they are way tighter than the original and will damage the cartridge pins. I had this happen to me.

The magic bullet of deoxIt from Craig industries. Use a cotton swab and put some on a cartridge insert it a few times and it will remove all the oxidation and the NES will be like new. Radio Shack sells it in a spray bottle, but they also have their contact cleaner with it in a smaller concentration for much cheaper. Just look for deoxIt in the ingredients.
 
You can still pick up the NES cleaning kit off of ebay or save yourself the hassle and buy a new 72 pin connector from culsum. It's a 5 minute swap and the ijstructions are pretty thorough.
The carts can be cleaned with a high concentrate rubbing alcohol and a qtip, but if they are really dirty I recommend using an old flat eraser. Cut it down so itfits in the slot. Just make sure to remove the debris.

That's all the info you need right there.
 
Seriously, this stuff is magic, and it works wonders on oxidized chip pins on arcade boards.



http://www.caig.com/

But if you are really cheap you can buy some good old Radio Shack 64-057



Radio Shack also sells brand name deoxit, but the bottle is tiny:

 
Yes, it destroyed the connectors on a couple of my carts before I caught on. DO NOT USE those cheap Chinese replacement connectors if you value your carts.

Huh? I've never once seen damage to a cart because of the new connectors. I've seen lots of them damaged by idiots trying to clean them with erasers, Brasso, and other such abrasives though. I've also seen original connectors that have been bent back into shape that will damage the connectors on the carts too. People bend the fingers back and they don't get them straight, and they scrape away at the cartridge fingers.

The new connectors are tight, but I've yet to see any damage on any games. And after a little use, they loosen up a bit - I think the majority of the "tightness" is really the plastic housing of the connector being too snug. If you look straight into a new one you can see where the center is bent down a bit compared to the edge.

-Ian
 
Huh? I've never once seen damage to a cart because of the new connectors. I've seen lots of them damaged by idiots trying to clean them with erasers, Brasso, and other such abrasives though. I've also seen original connectors that have been bent back into shape that will damage the connectors on the carts too. People bend the fingers back and they don't get them straight, and they scrape away at the cartridge fingers.

The new connectors are tight, but I've yet to see any damage on any games. And after a little use, they loosen up a bit - I think the majority of the "tightness" is really the plastic housing of the connector being too snug. If you look straight into a new one you can see where the center is bent down a bit compared to the edge.

-Ian

I never did any of those things, but I have one of those chinese connectors if you want to try it out. Only takes about 30 inserts before you can see fiberboard.
 
You don't need to replace the connector, they are easy to fix...

The problem is, that most of the old connectors are more than just bent. The plating has worn away from years of use, and I frequently see them corroded and otherwise mangled. Also, if you're not real careful bending the pins back, you can bend them such that they damage the edge fingers on the games. You bend the pins, then after that, you get a nice squeaky/scratchy sound when you insert the cartridge into the Nintendo. Not good.


Tighe said:
I never did any of those things, but I have one of those chinese connectors if you want to try it out. Only takes about 30 inserts before you can see fiberboard.

I'd be interested to see that - where did you obtain it? The connectors I've been using have been just fine. I've fixed well over a hundred Nintendos at this point. Any machine I touch gets a new connector. It's not worth it trying to bend and fiddle and muck with nasty, dirty, worn old connectors. I've got a couple of large Priority Mail boxes full cruddy of old original connectors though, if for some reason I ever wanted to. I always wondered what to do with them - maybe glue them all together and make something? Any ideas?

The most important thing you can do to keep your games playing right is to CLEAN YOUR GAMES. Clean the edge connectors on the game cartridges with isopropyl alcohol. Never use abrasives. Disassemble the cartridge to get better access.

-Ian
 
Ive fixed 3 or 4 so far simply be cleaning the edge connector with alcohol & a toothbrush and bending the pins back. Havent had any problems. I dont even press down on the carts, they make good contact just pushing them to the connector.
 
The problem is, that most of the old connectors are more than just bent. The plating has worn away from years of use, and I frequently see them corroded and otherwise mangled. Also, if you're not real careful bending the pins back, you can bend them such that they damage the edge fingers on the games. You bend the pins, then after that, you get a nice squeaky/scratchy sound when you insert the cartridge into the Nintendo. Not good.




I'd be interested to see that - where did you obtain it? The connectors I've been using have been just fine. I've fixed well over a hundred Nintendos at this point. Any machine I touch gets a new connector. It's not worth it trying to bend and fiddle and muck with nasty, dirty, worn old connectors. I've got a couple of large Priority Mail boxes full cruddy of old original connectors though, if for some reason I ever wanted to. I always wondered what to do with them - maybe glue them all together and make something? Any ideas?

The most important thing you can do to keep your games playing right is to CLEAN YOUR GAMES. Clean the edge connectors on the game cartridges with isopropyl alcohol. Never use abrasives. Disassemble the cartridge to get better access.

-Ian

I don't know why you are opposed to trying deoxIT, you don't have to fiddle with anything.

As for the connector I got over 10 years ago. I think I might have bought it from mcm electronics before they merged with newark. I got my nes schematics at the same time.
 
The connector I bought from Amazon has worked great, though I did intentionally loosen the pins just a bit when I discovered it was a little tight. No issues since.

As far as cleaning, if you want to go the cheaper yet really effective route, I'd suggest buying a small jar of MOMS Mag and Wheel polish from Autozone. Its only 3 bucks, and works wonders at cleaning cartidge connectors. Plus it lasts FOREVER....I bought the smallest jar they had, and I still have a quarter jar to spare after doing all 140 NES cartidges, 75 SNES, 30 N64 and 60+ Genesis carts.

Just don't expect to be able to use your arms for a few days after, cleaning carts is the very definition of "elbow grease" lol.
 
Before I messed with arcade games I worked on console games. And as my name suggests I worked mostly on Nintendo consoles. I have repaired and rebuilt at least 50 consoles and at least 500 games. Start with the easiest fix first...the rubbing alcohol and Qtips. Just clean the game and insert it into the console. Remove it and repeat. After a couple times, clean the cart again. Do all of this 3 or 4 times. After doing that a couple times, clean it once more and try to get it to run in the console. About half the time that will make it work like new again. The other 50% of the time I changed the pin connectors. I never had any issues with the new pins damaging my carts.
 
Yeah I pin a ton of Nintendo systems and I have never seen any damage to games from it...

They are tight at first but loosen up after a bit. I've never had complaints form any I've sold.
 
As for the connector I got over 10 years ago. I think I might have bought it from mcm electronics before they merged with newark. I got my nes schematics at the same time.

I'm thinking maybe it's just where you're getting the connectors from? And if you got it over 10 years ago, perhaps these days they are better?
 
I don't know why you are opposed to trying deoxIT, you don't have to fiddle with anything.
DeoxIT is great stuff. And it is a wonderful contact cleaner. But the connectors in the old Nintendo consoles are usually pretty worn, the plating is worn off, they're often corroded and bent. It's not worth the "fiddling" and cleaning, when I can just use a nice shiny new connector that has none of those problems. It's not worth the effort it takes to carefully examine/clean/bend/test/bend/test/bend/straighten/clean/retest an old connector - especially when you're fixing up ten machines at once, and you want to be able to guarantee that they'll work for people.

Also, most of the gunk on the cartridges isn't corrosion (the contacts are gold plated - they don't corrode unless the plating is damaged or missing from some idiot cleaning it with sandpaper or an eraser) - it's just dirt and grime from years of use and abuse. Not to mention other things like decades-old Pepsi goo. DeoxIT is a great cleaner here, but it's expensive. Much more so than alcohol - which does the same job in this application. When you're cleaning several hundred cartridges, isopropyl alcohol is the best thing I've found. It's non-abrasive, doesn't hurt plastics, evaporates cleanly, and it's cheap and readily available.

DeoxIT will do a fantastic job cleaning cartridges - and it's great thing to use. I just have found that I can do the same job with something more readily available and less expensive. Also, it's easy to tell people to use isopropyl alcohol to clean their games with, since it's so easy to get and most people already have it anyway.

-Ian
 
I'm thinking maybe it's just where you're getting the connectors from? And if you got it over 10 years ago, perhaps these days they are better?

That's what I'm thinking, I know around 10 years ago I got a batch of 5 that just didn't work. They didn't mess up carts or anything though.
 
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