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Cleaning corroded circuit boards?


Globerunner513

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So I have a fairly nice CD player I bought off of craigslist. Go figure it doesnt work:fmad:. Basically it won't accept power when wired up.

 

A guy I took it to said it was hopelessly corroded. I took it apart myself tonight and it doesn't seem too bad to me...

 

tell me what you think. Is there a way to clean the corrosion without making it worse?

 

picture.php?albumid=298&pictureid=2164

 

picture.php?albumid=298&pictureid=2163

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Rubbing alcohol and a toothbrush. Not yours, use a spare tooth brush. Basically any mild solvent that will evaporate without leaving a residue. The stereo may be too far gone to fix though, cleaning it up won't likely get it going. You can check for any loose solder joints that corrosion ate its way in to and touch those us, but odds are there's another blown out part that isn't obvious from the outside.

 

Be careful using even a toothbrush (get a soft-bristled one) around surface-mount components, as it's quite easy to knock them off if they weren't soldered well to start with. Clean it up over lots of newspaper on a table, so you can't loose any small (and I mean SMALL) parts. Take off the heatsink (the rear panel) if you can easily, and very gently wiggle the power amps (the vertical chips, one being under the fan in the second picture, the other next to it on the left) to see if they're firmly connected to their pins on the board. If those chips go out they'll sometimes have a pin or two loose.

 

Good luck

 

-Eric

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^^ Thank you! I gave it a shot and it certaintly looked like it would work.

 

Even though cleaning it up till it looked like new, and checking all the connections, still wouldn't power up. I'm guessing it's just kicked the bucket.

 

There is a deck on ebay right now though that's missing a faceplate. I'm hoping it will sell for cheap.

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Check the socket and pins on the power/speaker/etc connector. Corrosion there will certainly keep it from powering on. Also check any fuses and sockets. Most diagnostics after that would require tracing circuits and in-depth understanding of electronics. I've even given up on that since these days everything is controlled by specialized chips you have no chance of repairing and little chance of replacing, that is IF you can even find a replacement.

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