Cleaning NES games with sandpaper?

[jb143]

I'd only use sandpaper if the corrosion was really really bad. Otherwise Q-tips and alcohol all the way. Still doesn't work, then I open it up and use an eraser.

And even if the alcohol does seep into the board, it will evaporate away immediatly afterwards. The place I work builds circuit boards and we run them through a regular dishwasher to remove solder flux so even whatever tiny bit of water is left behind after the alcohol evaporates won't be a problem.

The only reason NES carts say not to clean them with alcohol is so you buy their special cleaner, which (surprize!), is mainly alcohol.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I've stopped using alcohol and started using copper polish. If you were polishing up a copper vase, you would not use alcohol, so I don't think it would be the best for copper contacts either.

[Kuros]

I'd only use sandpaper if the corrosion was really really bad. Otherwise Q-tips and alcohol all the way. Still doesn't work, then I open it up and use an eraser.

And even if the alcohol does seep into the board, it will evaporate away immediatly afterwards. The place I work builds circuit boards and we run them through a regular dishwasher to remove solder flux so even whatever tiny bit of water is left behind after the alcohol evaporates won't be a problem.

The only reason NES carts say not to clean them with alcohol is so you buy their special cleaner, which (surprize!), is mainly alcohol.

This is what I figured, the guy who bought the games off of me said he got his info off of some local guy who calls himself "Nintendo Dan"

What is it with guys with the name Dan and thinking "Nintendo Dan" is a good nickname?

[obesolete]

I'm a rub-and-q girl too for all the games that I purchace, even if they look clean, my nes is very picky and either likes the game genie or a quick hard thumb shove of the cartridge to the right and in.

I've also seen the eraser trick in action(when i was young a friend's mom used to use a pencil with an eraser to "fix" games, and i've done it myself when i was out of solution. it works almost as well as alcohol.

[FxMercenary]

i bought one of those cleaning kits off ebay with the solution, anti-static spray, wipes and the tool to open up the cart.

Ive never had a problem with a blinking nes game since. I cleaned all 105 of my games, none of them blink at all.

Best stuff ive ever bought.