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A cleaning question

post #1 of 8
4/9/10 at 11:08pm
Thread Starter 
I have a young friend of the family heading over with his pride and joy a Nintendo DS, this has had milk poured into it by baby brother and has stopped working (surprise).

To clean it I plan to open the case rinse it throughly with distilled water to get all the milk particles out, then rinse through with meths or alcohol, allow a decent drying time somewhere warm, then see if it comes back to life.

Does that sound like a daft idea? any other advice would be gratefully recieved

Cheers
FRED
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post #2 of 8
4/10/10 at 1:00am
open as much as you can - look for diy battery replacment guides or other web hacking info if no obvious screws

detergent could help remove more milk residue - if 1st pass doesn't fix it you may need to "wet plug" connectors to force cleaing fluids into fine pitch parts, scrub with toothbrush

deionized or distilled water rinse,

then final rinse with isopropy alcohol is usually safe with most electronics packaging plastics and speeds drying
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post #3 of 8
4/10/10 at 1:52am
Milk is a mostly a suspension of fat in water, but there are two problems (contaminants) to clean in electronics. One is polarized (salts and lipids) and one is not (oil and grease). Alcohol works for the polarized contaminants but for the non-polarized you need a "de-greaser" like naptha. Some commercial electronics cleaners use a combination of alcohol and freon.
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post #4 of 8
4/10/10 at 2:11am
Thread Starter 
I'd not thought of the fats, I'll run detergents through first

thanks
FRED
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post #5 of 8
4/10/10 at 3:20am
Pour dry rice in a container, and submerge ds in the rice. This is to remove all the moisture from the Ds.

Wait 48 hours to dry then open case and clean with q tip moistened with a tiny bit of water, windex if using on the touch screen.

It should work then, trust me I've spilled pop, milkshakes and even a raw egg (I had a recipe on my laptop) in electronics, and this is most likely the best way to save them.
Good Luck!
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post #6 of 8
4/10/10 at 11:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joe_cool View Post
Milk is a mostly a suspension of fat in water, but there are two problems (contaminants) to clean in electronics. One is polarized (salts and lipids) and one is not (oil and grease). Alcohol works for the polarized contaminants but for the non-polarized you need a "de-greaser" like naptha. Some commercial electronics cleaners use a combination of alcohol and freon.
Way too extreme. Alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol = isopropyl alcohol) will dissolve any fats in milk, and unlike naptha, it isn't nasty. Naptha can dissolve plastics, which would be BAD for the DS. So will acetone and maybe methanol, depending on the plastics.

Clean with whatever works. Nothing too aggressive. You can scrub (using a soft toothbrush) with a solution of 1 part Dawn dishsoap (or similar unscented detergent) to 10 parts water. Rinse VERY well with deionized or good distilled water. Rinse with 70-100% ethanol/isopropanol. Dry completely. Then dry it another day.
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post #7 of 8
4/10/10 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omega View Post
Way too extreme. Alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol = isopropyl alcohol) will dissolve any fats in milk, and unlike naptha, it isn't nasty. Naptha can dissolve plastics, which would be BAD for the DS. So will acetone and maybe methanol, depending on the plastics.
Agreed, naptha is not recommended for delicate plastics. Isopropanol is effective at removing nonpolar compounds and is less toxic than most petroleum solvents.
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post #8 of 8
4/10/10 at 3:26pm
I once spilt milk on the back seat of my car and nothing would shift it .
I guess i should have tried napalm and then claimed the insurance
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