SNES games in BAD shape

[Dire 51]

Quick question for you guys:

A friend of mine recently acquired about 10 SNES games from somewhere. Problem is, the contacts are fairly corroded (it's like they were left outside for the past 8 years). Is it possible to remove corrosion from contacts, or are we SOL here? We discussed possibilities for cleaning them, but since you guys would know, would any attempt to do so be a waste of time or what?

[Dire 51]

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[Mr. Smashy]

Since nobody is helping you out here...

I'm under the impression that SNES cartridge contacts are gold-plated copper. The gold consists of a pretty thin layer and rubs off in parts after a fair bit of use and exposes the copper. In an environment with a fair bit of moisture and oxygen (both fairly hard to avoid unless you vacuum-seal everything), the copper begins to corrode and become much less conductive. A common result is having dark green crud on your contacts.

Some good solutions to this problem are in this thread:
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=365892
(which is probably why nobody bothered replying to this thread).

Restoring a good game, in my opinion, is never a waste of time. If you have any particularly valuable games, you might even be able to solder out the ROM chip from one game and put it into a matching board from another (preferably cheaper) game.

[Dire 51]

Ah, didn't realize that thread would help. Thanks.

None of these games are particularly valuable, we just wantd to see if we could get them working. And frankly, after reading that thread, I don't know if they'd be worth the time to restore. It might be easier just to get replacements.

[Bratwurst]

Once corrosion on metal tracework sets in it's as good as gone. A last ditch effort can be made in buffing the surface with some sort of abrasive to try and get rid of it all.

I once picked up an Atari 2600 cart (very cheap in a bundle with others) without really looking at it. Took it home to clean it and found the entire contact edge had 'crystalized' into green puffs. One experimental swipe of a q-tip completely swept away any evidence that a circuit trace was once there.

[Gast]

I once had a SMB cart like that... Well since it was SMB I tried out a toothpick to scratch all the Pins "usable" - and it ALWAYS works now @_@

[dave2236]

open the cart, grab a piece of sand paper, send the edges, clean off with alcohol and put it back together


or if you dont have a 3.8mm bit then use a flathead screwdriver with a piece of sandpaper. Sand the contacts and clean with a q-tip wetted in alcohol