Hand Polishing Genesis Carts

I was browsing Genesis games on eBay and came across a seller that advertised their games as "hand polished." They showed some examples of the cart connectors looking beautiful. I did a little more digging and found this:

http://users.zoominternet.net/~sgazi...ame_clean.html

Basically, you get some metal polish for $5 at Wal-Mart and scrub the connector.

http://srktt.com/photos/mothers1.jpg

It takes the cart from this:

http://srktt.com/photos/mothers2.jpg

To this:

http://srktt.com/photos/mothers3.jpg

I did this on a spare cart I had and the results were gorgeous. My rag came out filthy black and the connector shined like the sun.

Is this common knowledge? Is there a drawback I'm unaware of?

Lord! Those connectors are very clean! Having said that, I think that the active ingredient in the hand polish is sodium hydroxide (?) and kerosine (?). Maybe you could very this information? If so, I believe it's a harsh cleaner.

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Originally Posted by SEGA.GENESIS1989

Lord! Those connectors are very clean! Having said that, I think that the active ingredient in the hand polish is sodium hydroxide (?) and kerosine (?). Maybe you could very this information? If so, I believe it's a harsh cleaner.

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That appears to be correct.

http://www.chemcas.com/msds112/cas/4..._1310-73-2.asp

I only did this on a single cart as a skeptic. I'm looking for feedback more than encouraging others to do this.

Since it is a harsh chemical, I am not sure if applying it liberally to the connector is such a good idea. However, I'll defer judgement and let some of the more experienced members chime in on the topic!

Why bother doing it to a working cart?

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Originally Posted by havok666

Why bother doing it to a working cart?

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I buy used games on a regular basis. They get a cleaning before ever touching my systems. If there is a better way of doing it then I'm all for it. It's part of the ritual.

I use Bar Keeper's Friend all the time and never have have had a problem.

I give all my cartridges a cleaning with a couple of isopropyl-soaked q-tips. So far it's been good enough for me. I'd be concerned that use of abrasive polishers like this could wear through the microscopicly thin gold plating on the pins, especially if they were quite worn already.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

I buy used games on a regular basis. They get a cleaning before ever touching my systems. If there is a better way of doing it then I'm all for it. It's part of the ritual.

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Ever hear of Isopropyl and q tips?

I'll normally eyeball how dirty a cart is before opening it up. If I get a lot of gunk off with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol I'll normally open it up and give the contacts a better cleaning using and art eraser and maybe very fine steel wool. This polish sound like it'd go between the eraser and steel wool for abrasiveness, but as long as you're not doing it to a cart very frequently you're probably fine.

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Originally Posted by havok666

Ever hear of Isopropyl and q tips?

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I use q-tips currently (and have been doing so for years). I also open the carts to clean them. I'm just saying the end result with polish looked oodles better than this ever will. The game looked brand new. My concern is if this is "bad" for the cart.

Personally don't see the need for this, but then I don't usually clean the contacts of my games unless they repeatedly fail to work. Wouldn't like to use chemicals on them - mostly don't even use moisture, just dry cotton buds (q-tips), occasionally a good quality pencil eraser, unless a thing is really dirty - in which case a combination of water / "wet wipes" (for the casing) seems to work.

I agree. There's no need for this in literally 99.99% of the cartridges out there. A simple q-tip in solution will do the trick. It's a bit excessive to open these carts. Even with the right tool, which I have, I've noticed there's inevitable damage to the plastic casing. This should be a one-time-in-a-lifetime operation; hopefully with no more occasions than needed to swipe a game battery, for instance.

I've heard of a few people that say metal polish works great, but I've never had any problems using isopropyl and q-tips. Out of the hundreds of carts I've purchased I think there were only one or two that I couldn't bring back to life.

If a game isn't working even after you scrub it thoroughly with alcohol, it's almost certainly a fault somewhere else in the cartridge. Polishing it further is about as effective as asking someone to give your car a jumpstart when you've run out of gas.

And I meant it when I said the gold plating is seriously thin. Only a few microns of the stuff. Polish it too hard and you've got no more gold.

So given that the connector is hidden in a piece of plastic where it's very hard to see, I'm okay with leaving wear marks alone.

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Originally Posted by Jax184

If a game isn't working even after you scrub it thoroughly with alcohol, it's almost certainly a fault somewhere else in the cartridge. Polishing it further is about as effective as asking someone to give your car a jumpstart when you've run out of gas.

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This is hyperbole, I've had several games that required a more extensive cleaning of the contacts than just 70% and 91% rubbing alcohol.

One was a copy of MegaMan X that looked almost charred, another was a copy of Sonic Chaos that had to be disassembled and polished multiple times before it would work, and I have a copy of Star Wars Arcade for the 32X that looked like it had gone through Afghanistan and needed extensive cleaning.

Rubbing alcohol will fix a solid 90% of the issues, but sometimes you need a bit more oomph for dirty contacts.

If it's visibly a mess, then sure. But if it's shiny and clean but the game's still stone dead, there's something else wrong. I'm talking about those few games which seem to be hard to find working copies of. I've seen people polish those things until their fingers wanted to fall off.

If anyone cares I ended up opting not to do this. You guys talked me out of it. ;)

I get clean results that boot every time using an eraser and cotton swabs. I may resort to this if I get something that outright refuses to boot. The carts I've had like that in the past were resurrected with an eraser.

Like OP, I buy lots of used games at thrifts and such. They all get the casing taken apart (except on older stuff like Atari and Colecovision that are destructive to the cart label) and 400 grit sandpaper along both sides of the pins on the PCB, followed by 91% isopropyl on a cotton swab. Entire cart casing gets sanitized as well, screwed back together, and then it gets to play in one of my consoles. I have heard of using everything from Barkeeper's Friend to toothpaste to Brasso to aluminum polish. I would just use caution with anything containing petroleum, chlorine or benzene. These are caustic and could degrade the board components.

Besides, sandpaper and alcohol work great, so why the need for anything stronger?

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Originally Posted by tz101

Like OP, I buy lots of used games at thrifts and such. They all get the casing taken apart (except on older stuff like Atari and Colecovision that are destructive to the cart label) and 400 grit sandpaper along both sides of the pins on the PCB, followed by 91% isopropyl on a cotton swab. Entire cart casing gets sanitized as well, screwed back together, and then it gets to play in one of my consoles. I have heard of using everything from Barkeeper's Friend to toothpaste to Brasso to aluminum polish. I would just use caution with anything containing petroleum, chlorine or benzene. These are caustic and could degrade the board components.

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I don't think people enjoy cleaning as much as we do. My Game Genies are the only games I had to beat up the label on to open.

I'd be sad to have a library of carts I couldn't open. Check out the inside of a Mega Drive Pro Action Replay 2 that came in the mail today. Someone had to have soldered these wires up by hand. Fun stuff.

http://srktt.com/photos/par2pcb.jpg

I've always used 91% isopropyl on a cotton swab to clean my cartridges. It's a practice I've followed ever since I got my first cartridge.

Incidentally, the only games that I've not opened are the Japanese cartridges and SEGA related pass through devices like the Game Genie. I believe there are two screws behind the cartridge label and opening it up with result in damaging it! To do so would make me cry! :Panda:

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Originally Posted by SEGA.GENESIS1989

Incidentally, the only games that I've not opened are the Japanese cartridges and SEGA related pass through devices like the Game Genie. I believe there are two screws behind the cartridge label and opening it up with result in damaging it! To do so would make me cry! :Panda:

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I punched through a NES Game Genie recently to clean it better. It's unnoticeable unless you knew what you were looking for. I would be very hesitant to do it on anything expensive like a Japanese cart. I would be irritated not to open it though.

Oh no! Japanese carts are out of the question. At least for the interim. I expect that eventually we won't have a choice. Damn faulty capacitors! :p

Like many, I clean my cartridges with isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip, and also an eraser. However, I'm forced to use 70% isopropyl alcohol, because they don't sell 91% where I'm from.

I've cleaned inside NES, SNES, and Genesis Game Genies with no hidden screws behind labels. Maybe mine were built differently?

@Eddie Spruce: Why do they not allow 91% isopropyl in Newfoundland?

I have no trouble getting 99% here in Vancouver. Safeway, Shoppers Drugmart and Costco all sell it. I won't use anything less as it leaves behind water which takes awhile to evaporate, and I often want to be able to fire something up right away.

I usually clean my cartridge connectors with slightly warm beer....or vodka.....or whatever else I'm drinking, at that particular moment in time.

this suits me because

1) I don't have to move very far
2) I'm always drinking something alcoholic, thus, always have something to clean my games with
3) I like my megadrive games smelling like a brewery (..it makes me feel 'at home')

happy polishing!!

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Originally Posted by tz101

@Eddie Spruce: Why do they not allow 91% isopropyl in Newfoundland?

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I don't know. I've been to many stores, like Wal-Mart and Shopper's Drug Mart, and all I see on the shelves is 70%. So unless they keep the stronger stuff behind the counter or something, you just can't get it here.

I've heard that some places have it behind the pharmacy counter. Try seeing if a safeway or shoppers has 99%.

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Originally Posted by Jax184

I've heard that some places have it behind the pharmacy counter. Try seeing if a safeway or shoppers has 99%.

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Thanks for the info. We don't have safeway, but I'll be sure to ask at Shoppers.

Wal-Mart here in Indiana carries 91% alcohol, but I have never seen 99% anywhere. I am guessing because of flammability concerns?

Actually, I forgot to mention, I found out my Grandmother recently picked up a bottle of 99% alcohol at Wal-Mart, but It doesn't seem to be any stronger. Is it possible that it's actually 70% disguised as 99%?

You can tell ethyl and isopropyl alcohol apart just by smelling it, and you can tell the strength of it by how it wets and dries. The surface tension of water and alcohol is quite different.

When you dip a q-tip in weak alcohol it'll make a huge drop that hangs off, like a water drop. Pure alcohol will mostly stay confined to the q-tip.

When you scrub something with the q-tip, it'll feel different in a way I find hard to describe. The weaker alcohols seem to offer more resistance, perhaps due to forming a thicker layer of liquid on the surface.

And as different grades of alcohol start to evaporate, they'll act differently. High purity alcohol will generally just form a slowly receeding puddle that leaves nothing behind, while low purity will separate into a bunch of distinct drops of water that take forever to dry.

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Originally Posted by tz101

I am guessing because of flammability concerns?

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Not at all. 91% alcohol burns just as fine as the 99% stuff. But the "normal" 91% rubbing alcohol contains some additives that will make you vomit if you try to drink it. It's was originally done to make alcoholics stop buying it as cheap booze.

You've got that a bit mixed up.

Ethyl alcohol (not isopropyl) is the same type as used in booze. But the stuff you buy in pharmacies is industrial grade, not food grade. The process they use to purify it leaves behind traces of very harmful chemicals. So they "denature" it to make it (theoretically) undrinkable.

Isopropyl isn't food safe at any purity. I think it can cause blindness and stuff.

Well, tz101 wrote just "alcohol", so I assumed that he was talking about ethanol. I didn't know the American "rubbing alcohol" was a mix of ethanol and isopropyl alcohol. Here in Denmark you can only buy either pure isopropyl alcohol or denatured ethanol labeled as "Housekeeping Spirit". I assumed the latter was the same as "rubbing alcohol", but I was wrong :)

Using metal polish is fine once or twice. Using it many times, could be a bit too much for the contacts. If you take care of your collection, you'll only need to clean a used game right after you buy it, then never again. I cleaned my entire cartridge collection using this method:

http://www.retrorgb.com/cleangames.html

I had so many games (especially Game Genie's) that would barely work, but they all work perfect now.

I have some dumpster N64 carts that could use a really good polishing..

I imagine that really mistreated carts (ones that were stored in a moist environment, or have nearly black contacts) could benefit from a brasso type cleaning once or twice in the lifetime of the cart. More than that and I think you'd begin to wear the contacts off. For regular cart cleaning I use CRC QD Electrical Contact Cleaner (the QD stands for quick-drying and they mean it) and a qtip or emery board (like the kind you'd use on fingernails). Sometimes the "pink pet" eraser, but it seems to leave gunk on the contacts for me. Maybe I'm not doing it right.

Nothing touches my Cart System without a Fully Cleaning