Help please - cleaning a TV Remote Control

[ljcox]

Does anyone know how to clean a TV Remote Control. It has rubber buttons (presumably conductive rubber) that when pressed, bridge tracks on the PCB. One button was not working, so I opened it and sprayed the PCB and rubber with RP7. Now, only 3 buttons work!

Len

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Please post your question in only one forum!.

 

[canadianpoet2012]

I would try using metholated spirit. It's a bit like white spirit only weaker. People use it for cleaning video and tape player heads. You can pick it up from most hardware stores. Don't use water though, and make sure you have thoroughly dried it and wiped it all down before you power it back up and try and re-use it.

Hope that was helpful to you.

 

[Dean Huster]

Mentholated spirits? Sounds like booze for a sore throat to a Yank like me! Is this the same stuff there here in the U.S. we'd call isopropyl alcohol (IPA)?

Anyway, IPA is what I use with great success. It's available on the "health and beauty" aisle, but don't use that stuff because it contains lots of water. Use the stuff from the paint aisle that's used as shellac thinner. It's cheaper in the long run and is pure IPA with no water. DO NOT USE any other solvents such as lacquer thinner, paint thinner, acetone or whatever because it'll eat the contact alive. I've used IPA to clean remotes and calculators -- anything using those conductive pads. Just take the remote apart and clean each button with a wet cotton swab and dry off each with a (what else?) dry swab. Run over the PCB contact grids as well.

Dean

 

[ljcox]

Thanks Dean and Canadianpoet,
In Australia, we call it "metho" and my recollection (from long forgotten chemistry lectures) it is methanol. It makes you blind (in both senses) if you drink too much of it.

I'll look for the IPA in the hardware paint section.

Len