Vintage Blacks cleaning, matching parts

[drevyek]

I have a pile of vintage blacks that I pulled out of a Wyse PCE (for restoration!), and they're filthy. Covered in corrosion from the PCB, gunk, etc.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner that I picked up from Amazon, and I'd like to clean the switches properly. However, I really don't want to spend a bunch of time cleaning each one for x minutes, one at a time (especially not for 100 of them!).

My question is: Should I keep the parts of a switch together when doing this, cleaning one at a time, or should I just do like 3 runs (one for all of the stems, tops, and bottoms)?

[Bjerrk]

No particular reason to keep them together. Good luck with the sonic'ing - the quality of ultrasound cleaners seems highly variable!

[drevyek]

No particular reason to keep them together. Good luck with the sonic'ing - the quality of ultrasound cleaners seems highly variable!

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how good this one is. I'm getting some scale off, but I may need to run it for longer on the particularly grimy ones. I'm currently going for 10 minutes per run.

And good to know, thanks! I'll just dump them all in. Makes it a lot easier to have a bag for each.

[Lynx_Carpathica]

By keeping the parts together, you can elliminate the need for annoying mods like that damn annoying paper mod.

[gianni]

---

[Easy_Spinach]

I have a pile of vintage blacks that I pulled out of a Wyse PCE (for restoration!), and they're filthy. Covered in corrosion from the PCB, gunk, etc.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner that I picked up from Amazon, and I'd like to clean the switches properly. However, I really don't want to spend a bunch of time cleaning each one for x minutes, one at a time (especially not for 100 of them!).

My question is: Should I keep the parts of a switch together when doing this, cleaning one at a time, or should I just do like 3 runs (one for all of the stems, tops, and bottoms)?

my method:

1. disassemble all switches (must)
2. soak/shake in soapy water
3. rinse it all under tap water for a good amount of time. I use a shower head.
4. soak / shake them in ethanol or isopropanol (optional)
4. put them in ultra sonic cleaner (use distilled water) or just rinse them twice with distilled water
5. let them dry

[gianni]

I have a pile of vintage blacks that I pulled out of a Wyse PCE (for restoration!), and they're filthy. Covered in corrosion from the PCB, gunk, etc.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner that I picked up from Amazon, and I'd like to clean the switches properly. However, I really don't want to spend a bunch of time cleaning each one for x minutes, one at a time (especially not for 100 of them!).

My question is: Should I keep the parts of a switch together when doing this, cleaning one at a time, or should I just do like 3 runs (one for all of the stems, tops, and bottoms)?

my method:

1. disassemble all switches (must)
2. soak/shake in soapy water
3. rinse it all under tap water for a good amount of time. I use a shower head.
4. soak / shake them in ethanol or isopropanol (optional)
4. put them in ultra sonic cleaner (use distilled water) or just rinse them twice with distilled water
5. let them dry

I'd use ipropropanol last, why is the last step water?

[Easy_Spinach]

I have a pile of vintage blacks that I pulled out of a Wyse PCE (for restoration!), and they're filthy. Covered in corrosion from the PCB, gunk, etc.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner that I picked up from Amazon, and I'd like to clean the switches properly. However, I really don't want to spend a bunch of time cleaning each one for x minutes, one at a time (especially not for 100 of them!).

My question is: Should I keep the parts of a switch together when doing this, cleaning one at a time, or should I just do like 3 runs (one for all of the stems, tops, and bottoms)?

my method:

1. disassemble all switches (must)
2. soak/shake in soapy water
3. rinse it all under tap water for a good amount of time. I use a shower head.
4. soak / shake them in ethanol or isopropanol (optional)
4. put them in ultra sonic cleaner (use distilled water) or just rinse them twice with distilled water
5. let them dry

I'd use ipropropanol last, why is the last step water?

Was my initial idea too, but I noticed that it leaves a whiteish residue on the switches. I believe that the alcohol dissolves some of the flux in the solder. Could be other reasons, but thats why the last step is distilled water.