Cleaning Corroded Battery Holders...

[Alex]

I just had some success cleaning a non-working battery holder. The substance of choice was Edmund Scientific Tech Spec Lens Cleaner!

I just used a few drops and it seemed to work right away. It loosened up the corrosion and I
scrubbed away the loosened mung with a nail clipper filer hook tip. (say that three times fast).

[Alex]

Originally posted by Alex:
I just had some success cleaning a non-working battery holder. The substance of choice was Edmund Scientific Tech Spec Lens Cleaner!

I just used a few drops and it seemed to work right away. It loosened up the corrosion and I
scrubbed away the loosened mung with a nail clipper filer hook tip. (say that three times fast).

<font size="2" face="verdana, sans-serif">Well, my success was shortlived. I tried the camera just now and it would not fire up. Unless I put the batteries in wrong, but the battery's metallic connectors looked dried out and gray.

So I sprayed some Pro-Gold G5, (made by CAIG industries, www.caig.com) aka enhancer, lubricant, preservative. Didn't work right away, I fiddled with the batteries, took them out and tested them, sprayed some more G5, put the batteries back in, and now the camera works again!

[etimh]

Just out of curiosity, which particular camera are you working on?

As you well know, corroded battery compartment/holder/terminals are one of the biggest issues with ebay purchased cameras. I've bought a few different ones with various stages of bad corrosion.

On one Fujica I bought the corrion was so bad the little terminals inside the handle just broke away. Well, on that one I just bought another junk camera and swapped out the whole handle.

Replacing large component parts is a possible solution on some cameras but on others it's impossible--you just have to do the best you can cleaning them up. I've had some successes as well just using a tiny bit of plain old water.

Tim

[Alex]

Originally posted by etimh:
Just out of curiosity, which particular camera are you working on?

As you well know, corroded battery compartment/holder/terminals are one of the biggest issues with ebay purchased cameras. I've bought a few different ones with various stages of bad corrosion.

<font size="2" face="verdana, sans-serif">It's a Eumig 881. Funny thing too. After the holder came back to life for the second time. I switched out the holders in the two cameras.

The crazy part is the first camera was starting to "stutter", a usual sign that the batteries are weak. But when I switched batteries and battery holders, BOTH cameras started functioning and neither one was stuttering.

That's a puzzle.

[audadvnc]

My Nikon R8 came to me early last year - nonfunctional. DOA. I found corrosion on the battery contacts. I used fine grit emery cloth (a kind of sandpaper, black in color) that polished the terminals to a new brassy color. With batteries replaced it started up no problem, and I haven't had a problem with that camera since.