A2500 battery leakage cleanup
 

I have gotten an A2500 barebones from the gracious Redrumloa. He let me know it had battery leakage before I bought it. Well, it arrived this past weekend, and I've been trying to clean it off. I've used a toothbrush with IPA, baking soda and just by itself, but no luck. I was told on amibay to put it in dishwasher without drying cycle, but shouldn't I remove the chips first? and do i need soap, or is there a better way? Just to let Zetro know, just getting a second opinion before I flush sixty bucks down the drain

Vinegar and the toothbrush. What is the dishwasher going to clean off that the toothbrush won't? You will never make it look new and like the battery never leaked. You just need to make sure the acid is neutralized so no more damage is done.

Dan

alkali, if you're using vinegar to clean it anyway - acid if you're using bicarbonate of soda or toothpaste. Not sure what the batteries are in Amigas.

Rechargeable batteries in an Amiga is always alkaline so you need a weak acid to neutralise. Diluted lemon juice or better diluted white vinegar.

Baking Soda is the wrong thing to use.

Use some litmus paper if you don't believe me.

But cleaning and neutralising battery leakage is not going to repair dead tracks. If it does not work as is, you're gonna have to use a multimeter to measure the resistance of tracks and possibly repair them with jumpers. However this is a mult-layer board and you can of course only repair the top & bottom layers.

It was ni-cd, so i'll use lemon juice and IPA afterwards. I'm justyring to clean as much acid residue as possible. There are no dead tracks on the top layer i can tell you, the track that runs through the center is clear of residue... odd. The machine works, but i think it has a bad paula in it or CIAS, it has no sound, either that or caps where teh audio circuits are to blame.

White vinegar will be less sticky but if you are going to go over with IPA I doubt it matters.

Normal capacitors hardly will dye entirely. In this case I recommend you to replace Paula.

Capacitors from A1000/500(+)/3000(T)/2000 (and sub-versions) normally just lose some of their capacitance over the years.

Weirdly, since getting my 3000, I've put this aside. Oh well, after X-mas dies down, I'll get it open again, go over with mild acid, and email softhut about a paula for $8. And I'll check to see if any vias were affected (if it has any :) )

Hint: Go to a brewing shop or chemist & buy some Iodophor solution (Iodine & Phosphoric Acid).

Squirt it all over the motherboard (use a syringe, it stains skin badly) & let it sit for about 30 mins, then run in the dishwasher (turn off before drying cycle starts).

I tried many bottles of vinegar when my A2000 had this problem & it didn't work as well as expected...Iodophor blew that stuff right off! :)

Another up-side is that you don't have to physically scrub already comprimised PCB tracks!

PZ.

In that case, could i use coca-cola? It has (IIRC) phoshoric acid and carbonic too? Of course, using 50-50 water/ipa to clean it afterwards?

I'd not suggest doing that.

Coke does not contain enough of the good stuff to do anything to help you.

Also, there are ingredients like sugar that might prove difficult to remove from certain areas when rinsing.

Iodophor WILL do what you want, so just grab some of it & you'll be set :agree

PZ.