Edge connector oxidising - how do I clean?

[Hyperspeed]

I have a Blizzard 1260 and the little edge connector on it for the
SCSI-IV kit has contacts which have changed from glistening gold to
bright yellow.

What shall I use to clean it?

Will brass polish do or do I need something special? I've seen switch
cleaners but they leave a "protective film" on the metal which
lubricates and prevents further contamination - but I don't think this
would be good for a data interface.

Can anyone name a good brand of computer card contact cleaner or
something? Who sells this stuff?

[Jeff]

I'm sure it's not proper, but I've gently used a clean pencil eraser many times with very good results on edge connectors :-)

Jeff

[Framiga]

Hi Jeff,

pencil eraser is a good way used for SIMMs contacts too.

If the edge contact pins are paticularly oxidized,  

use a "very" thin pitch abrasive paper (800-1000).

Bye

[amiwalker]

Do NOT use brass polish!! It and the pencil eraser will leave a film on the contacts! And abrasive paper is also not a very wise idea, it will also cause contact wear!!NO NO NO!!

For contacts that are realy bad, use a Fiberglass pencil (sold in electronic stores).

Do not rub the contact too hard with this pencil, just let the fiberglass do the work!

To clean the surface use compressed air to remove any leftover fiberglass from the board.

Follow up with a Q-Tip with Denatured Alchol (not rubbing alchol it will also leave a film).

Also when working with any eletronic boards, make sure you are properly grounded with a wrist strap to prevent static dis-charge from destroying the board.

The above is especialy true in the winter months when the humidity is low.

Hope this helps!

[Hyperspeed]

Yeah I had a feeling that brass polish wasn't going to be the right
thing, I would however like to get the oxidised material off the edge
connectors in a chemical way as opposed to abrasion.

I did try the pencil eraser technique as I read it on Amiga.org before
but I notice whilst it cleaned off the tarnish it left it's own cloudy
film over the metal which definately wouldn't have been good news had
I not manually scraped it off with a round tipped knife.

I have isolated my SCSI errors to the Blizzard 1260's SCSI connector
as it's a little dirty and whenever I get an error and tug the lead a
little it won't reoccur for a while.

I've seen Maplin selling a little spray can of contact fluid for PCBs
so I might try this.

Hope that this IS the real problem.

Phase5 integrated the SCSI-IV into the BlizzardPPC (the ones that
included the SCSI option) and I'm beginning to wonder if the old myth
about A500 socketed chips being better is true.

Things that aren't permanently attached on a PCB will no doubt suffer
oxidisation!

Just wondering though if this Maplins fluid works on gold connectors
AND the tin connectors seen on SIMMs...