A customer in Phoenix brought in a vintage Atari 2600 that had been in a flood, saying 'if you can't fix it, just tell me what parts to salvage'.

I spent two evenings cleaning corrosion with a 99% isopropyl bath and a fiberglass pen, and the look on his face when it powered up made the whole messy job worth it, so what's your best save on a seemingly dead piece of gear?

4 comments

4 Comments

marywilson1d ago

That thing about rinsing saltwater gear first, hi @sandraf98, I learned that one the hard way with a old stereo receiver my cousin brought back from a beach house that flooded. I just dumped alcohol on it and ended up with this weird white crust all over the circuit board that took me a week to pick off with a toothpick. The tuner section still worked but the amp channels sounded like they were underwater, real muffled and staticky. He said he'd take it as a loss but I ended up pulling the transformer and a few good knobs, cleaned those up and they went into a different project. That was a good reminder that sometimes you gotta think about the salvage right from the start, not just hope for a miracle.

sandraf982mo ago

Flooded gear always gets an alcohol bath first.

paige3312mo ago

Actually, @sandraf98, an alcohol bath should come after a freshwater rinse if it was saltwater. The alcohol can't really dissolve the salt crystals first. That initial rinse gets the big stuff out before the alcohol dries everything.

angela_harris2mo ago

Saw a buddy drop his phone in a saltwater tide pool last summer. He rinsed it in fresh water, then soaked the whole thing in a big tub of isopropyl for like two days. It actually powered back on, but the speakers were shot.