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Contact enhancers?

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Daniel Prince

Jan 1, 1970
0
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.
 
W

whit3rd

Jan 1, 1970
0
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact

enhancer.

Çaig laboratories sells a variety of enhancers, with DeOxit, Preservit as
their main tradenames, which are easily available (try Radio Shack
for instance). Some are cleaners only, try to understand the
usage notes to find which are the enhancers.
 
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gregz

Jan 1, 1970
0
Daniel Prince said:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.
I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-26-5-oz-multi-purpose-lubricant-02004.html#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Greg
 
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gregz

Jan 1, 1970
0
gregz said:
I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.
I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-26-5-oz-multi-purpose-lubricant-02004.html#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Greg

Had to mention, using the red tube extension works well, in that you can
get small amounts, and it foams as it comes flowing easily into components.

Greg
 
P

Phil Allison

Jan 1, 1970
0
Daniel Prince said:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



..... Phil
 
P

Phil Allison

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Arfa Daily"
"Phil Allison"

Agreed in principle Phil, but I guess it depends on what starting point
you are 'enhancing' from.


** FFS Arthur - HAVE A LOOK on Ebay or Google under the OP's heading.

The concoctions being offered are all SNAKE OIL !!

Contact cleaner /lubricant products ( like WD40 ) are NOT the issue here.



.... Phil
 
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John-Del

Jan 1, 1970
0
With my one disconnected, the engine ran brilliantly, so I bit the bullet

and just bought an OEM one from a Landy dealer's spares department. When I

took the old one out, it had indeed been totally cleaned, and the wires were

spotless, but never-the-less, it still didn't work properly. The new one,

when fitted, did, and continues to do so, so just interested in your

findings for cleaning yours.


When MAF sensors were fairly new, I bought a very low mileage Ford van (U.S..) at an auction with the check engine light on. It started and idled fine, but as soon as it started to rev past 2K, it would fall on it's face and ping badly. Only codes retrieved indicated both banks lean. I brought it to a guy well known in the area as being know to be good with this new fangled stuff, he played with it an hour, and told me to return it for a day when I could spare it. I never got back to drop it off, but after a couple of months running it this way, I decided to pull the MAF connector off to see if there was any change, and it ran perfectly. It pulled hard to redlineup shift, and the ping was gone. I pulled the MAF meter out of it, and saw two wires. One was white and one was black, except the black one was black on the incoming air side only. I cleaned it off with a q-tip and flux remover, stuck it back in, and problem gone. I still have that van as my backup, has over 250K on it with the original MAF, still passes emissions testing, and I clean the MAF every year or so when I think about it. Over the years, it became a well known problem with 90s era Fords.
 
D

Daniel Prince

Jan 1, 1970
0
Phil Allison said:
** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil

I originally bought the Tweek because Jerry Pournelle recommended it
in his column in Byte magazine. Has any magazine published
objective, scientific tests of Tweek, DeoxIT Gold or any other
contact enhancers?
 
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gregz

Jan 1, 1970
0
Daniel Prince said:
I originally bought the Tweek because Jerry Pournelle recommended it
in his column in Byte magazine. Has any magazine published
objective, scientific tests of Tweek, DeoxIT Gold or any other
contact enhancers?

I have done a little testing myself. Just take some flat metal and some
leads, VOM.
Scrape around bare metal vs applied lubes or whatever. I get some positive
results vs dry metal.

Greg
 
W

whit3rd

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Daniel Prince" <[email protected]>


I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some...
I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in [various forms]
** Such products only work if you believe in them.
Like crystals and pyramids etc.

The advertising and marketing DOES look like snake-oil, but there's
some real technology behind it. A small amount of residue contains
a liquid semiconductor, which is the active part of Stabilant-22 and
DeOxit Shield S. NATO stocks the stuff (NSN 6850-01-435-6479 is
the stock number) for aviation and other high-reliability electronics applications.

The original patents have run out (issued about 1970), so the sales literature
no longer touts this very real electrical contact improvement.
 
W

William Sommerwerck

Jan 1, 1970
0
** Such products only work if you believe in them.
The advertising and marketing DOES look like snake-oil, but there's
some real technology behind it. A small amount of residue contains
a liquid semiconductor, which is the active part of Stabilant-22 and
DeOxit Shield S. NATO stocks the stuff (NSN 6850-01-435-6479 is
the stock number) for aviation and other high-reliability electronics
applications.

There's no question they improve the contact. The issue is whether they
improve the sound. I find this unlikely. However, all the audio connections in
my system have been treated with Caig Red and Gold products (as appropriate).
Why shouldn't they be clean?

When I worked for RCA at NOAA, one of the computers had problems with the edge
contacts on its memory board. No amount of conventional cleaning helped, but
Cramolin Red fixed it -- for a while (several days).
 
P

Phil Allison

Jan 1, 1970
0
"whit3rd"
Phil said:
"Daniel Prince" >
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some...
I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in [various forms]
** Such products only work if you believe in them.
Like crystals and pyramids etc.

The advertising and marketing DOES look like snake-oil, but there's
some real technology behind it.


** Pseudo technology.

Just like all the asinine SHIT you spew.




..... Phil
 
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whit3rd

Jan 1, 1970
0
When I worked for RCA at NOAA, one of the computers had problems with the edge

contacts on its memory board. No amount of conventional cleaning helped, but

Cramolin Red fixed it -- for a while (several days).

The red is (I believe) the same as DeOxit, and is a cleaner only. Clean
doesn't last. The blue (PreserVit or somesuch) had the lubricant/enhancer
component. That (blue) has now been renamed DeOxit Shield.
 
W

whit3rd

Jan 1, 1970
0
On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

....
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact. There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface. At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface. We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.
 
G

gregz

Jan 1, 1970
0
whit3rd said:
On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

...

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease



If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact. There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface. At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface. We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

I got some Cramolin copper grease. I never used it, but someday ?

My view on lube. Somewhat why oil works for sharpening, helps push aside
oxides, might also soften them.

Greg
 
G

George Herold

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bad example.  There are carbon doped greases that are used mostly to
dissipate static electricity between sliding surfaces and to lubricate
mechanical switches.  It doesn't take much resistivity to be
considered "conductive".
<http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/greases-and-lubricants/conductive...
117 ohm-cm bulk resistivity.  There are also some silver doped
greases.  I have no clue what those are for, but they should have
better conductivity than carbon doping.

I've got a tube of silver grease, that we bought but never used...
it's shoved to the back of my 'gunk' drawer.
It reads,"Typical applications include lubrication of switches or
circuit breakers, heat dissipation from transformers, or static
grounding on seals or O-rings."

Contains Silver, dimethyl poly-siloxane, carbon black.

George H.
 
G

George Herold

Jan 1, 1970
0
Gold on boards isn't anything like pure, and the cheap stuff has lots of
gaps in its surface coverage.   Depending on the pH, you can get a
monolayer of gold oxide on a surface, or (interestingly) a monolayer of
water, which it turns out forms a _hydrophobic_ surface, since all the
available hydrogen bonding sites are hidden.

(I was going to answer that gold didn't oxidize, but checked first, and
found this interesting paper:http://tinyurl.com/c34olw3.)

Thanks for the paper. Years ago I made this bouncing gold wire
quantum contact gizmo. After sitting for a while it wouldn't work as
well and I'd wipe the wires with a 'gold cleaning solution' that was
used in a lab I visited. I think the ‘recipe’ for the solution was 2
parts ethanol, one part toluene and one part methanol. (But it could
have been acetone instead of methanol?) This worked.. but it could
have just been the act of wiping that cleaned the surface.

George H.
 
G

gregz

Jan 1, 1970
0
gregz said:
I have done a little testing myself. Just take some flat metal and some
leads, VOM.
Scrape around bare metal vs applied lubes or whatever. I get some positive
results vs dry metal.

Greg

Anybody do anything using VCI emitters. A long time ago I got samples from
a wadia guy, never used those. I wonder if it's still good. Also used
Bullfrog spray electronic protector cleaner, smelled like maple Syrup.
Never could conclude anything. I do remember the little sheets often packed
around mechanical switches, especially silvered. Some areas outside the
paper had a lot of oxide.

Greg
 
G

gregz

Jan 1, 1970
0
gregz said:
Anybody do anything using VCI emitters. A long time ago I got samples from
a wadia guy, never used those. I wonder if it's still good. Also used
Bullfrog spray electronic protector cleaner, smelled like maple Syrup.
Never could conclude anything. I do remember the little sheets often packed
around mechanical switches, especially silvered. Some areas outside the
paper had a lot of oxide.

Greg

Don wadia Moses, the wadia guy.
He sure did some shit. Passed way in 2008.

Greg
 
D

Daniel Prince

Jan 1, 1970
0
Phil Allison said:
** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.
Crystals DO work. My digital watch has a quartz crystal that works
as an oscillator to keep the time. It also has liquid crystals that
work as displays.

I have an electronic lighter I use to light candles. It has a
piezoelectric crystal that works to generate sparks.

Diamonds are crystals. They work as abrasives in various types of
saws, grinding wheels and drills. Sapphire is a crystal. It works
as a phonograph needle.
 
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