19th April 2011, 2:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 19th April 2011, 3:03 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
I've been looking into restoring my SNES recently. I've found what seems to be the major cause of them turning yellow.
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/189
It seems some batches of plastic had improper mixing during the first runs of the SNES, and as a result they are much more susceptible to yellowing over time. In mine, the top is yellow but the bottom is still a nice grey (luckily the top isn't nearly as bad as a lot I've seen, much more mild). As for "restoring" it, there's a lot of rather heavy handed methods available, but the general conclusion is the surface of the plastic has been changed at a chemical level and there's no going back, so most of them involve either painting it or removing the surface layer to show the grey underneath. I sanded a small part on the back of mine and confirmed it's still grey in there.
As for the reset switch and power port, I may have found a dead SNES I can salvage those parts off of. There's only two points that need to be desoldered and resoldered on the power port, and 4 for the reset switch. All of them are large and a safe distance from other components, which makes it easier. The dead SNES is yellow on both top and bottom, so I can't salvage that to fix the discoloration, but I can use the shell to test out ways of removing it from my own.
http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/
This is the method I'm going to try. I've had a "black light" for some time now, which should do the trick for providing UV. I think I have the rest around here somewhere, so I just need to measure it out correctly and set up a timer. However, I'll wait for the dead system so I don't end up with a bleached white SNES top or something. Should it work, I'll see about applying some sealant to it.
One other thing. When I was inside, I noticed the rust wasn't as bad as I remembered. I also attempted to remove some of it. I tried simply using some sand paper to get it off. The circuit board is pretty much untouched. It was all along the metal edges of the board and some other solid metal components. The sand paper did a pretty good job of removing a lot of the rust. There's still a few traces of corrosion here and there, but the majority of it is gone. I used a finer grain to smooth down the metal after the rougher sanding. It's not buffed down, but it still looks pretty good and that's all inside the case anyway. There was a little bit of rust spreading to some of the contacts for two of the chips in the system. I picked off as much of the rust as I felt safe getting to using a tiny screw driver (again, not very much at all), but the general point is that without some intervention, that rust would have spread to the electrical components. I'll need to get some sealant for the metal as well to prevent the rust from returning.
Speaking of, I've found one of the best substances for removing magic marker and a bunch of other stains from plastic and even the glossy stickers on cartridges. It's something called "Goo Gone" and it does wonders. I tested a lot of stuff before finding this (as my copy of Ultima with a big worn out spot and white discoloration can attest to). It works incredibly well and doesn't do any damage to the cartridge itself (and so long as care is taken, none to glossy stickers either). It's good enough that when I go looking for used games, I don't worry about any writing or stickers on the games so long as the game itself isn't damaged in some way. It just takes a little time and persistence to get it off. For more stubborn markings, it can take a number of attempts, each time making it lighter and lighter by a very small amount, but it all gets cleared up eventually. I was very happy to finally find a way to remove some VERY old "Mauc's Video Game Exchange" stamps from some used games I got during the late 80's (one nice thing about that place is they photocopied instruction manuals for games so every game could have a manual, though it was in very poor quality and in black and white).
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/189
It seems some batches of plastic had improper mixing during the first runs of the SNES, and as a result they are much more susceptible to yellowing over time. In mine, the top is yellow but the bottom is still a nice grey (luckily the top isn't nearly as bad as a lot I've seen, much more mild). As for "restoring" it, there's a lot of rather heavy handed methods available, but the general conclusion is the surface of the plastic has been changed at a chemical level and there's no going back, so most of them involve either painting it or removing the surface layer to show the grey underneath. I sanded a small part on the back of mine and confirmed it's still grey in there.
As for the reset switch and power port, I may have found a dead SNES I can salvage those parts off of. There's only two points that need to be desoldered and resoldered on the power port, and 4 for the reset switch. All of them are large and a safe distance from other components, which makes it easier. The dead SNES is yellow on both top and bottom, so I can't salvage that to fix the discoloration, but I can use the shell to test out ways of removing it from my own.
http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/
This is the method I'm going to try. I've had a "black light" for some time now, which should do the trick for providing UV. I think I have the rest around here somewhere, so I just need to measure it out correctly and set up a timer. However, I'll wait for the dead system so I don't end up with a bleached white SNES top or something. Should it work, I'll see about applying some sealant to it.
One other thing. When I was inside, I noticed the rust wasn't as bad as I remembered. I also attempted to remove some of it. I tried simply using some sand paper to get it off. The circuit board is pretty much untouched. It was all along the metal edges of the board and some other solid metal components. The sand paper did a pretty good job of removing a lot of the rust. There's still a few traces of corrosion here and there, but the majority of it is gone. I used a finer grain to smooth down the metal after the rougher sanding. It's not buffed down, but it still looks pretty good and that's all inside the case anyway. There was a little bit of rust spreading to some of the contacts for two of the chips in the system. I picked off as much of the rust as I felt safe getting to using a tiny screw driver (again, not very much at all), but the general point is that without some intervention, that rust would have spread to the electrical components. I'll need to get some sealant for the metal as well to prevent the rust from returning.
Speaking of, I've found one of the best substances for removing magic marker and a bunch of other stains from plastic and even the glossy stickers on cartridges. It's something called "Goo Gone" and it does wonders. I tested a lot of stuff before finding this (as my copy of Ultima with a big worn out spot and white discoloration can attest to). It works incredibly well and doesn't do any damage to the cartridge itself (and so long as care is taken, none to glossy stickers either). It's good enough that when I go looking for used games, I don't worry about any writing or stickers on the games so long as the game itself isn't damaged in some way. It just takes a little time and persistence to get it off. For more stubborn markings, it can take a number of attempts, each time making it lighter and lighter by a very small amount, but it all gets cleared up eventually. I was very happy to finally find a way to remove some VERY old "Mauc's Video Game Exchange" stamps from some used games I got during the late 80's (one nice thing about that place is they photocopied instruction manuals for games so every game could have a manual, though it was in very poor quality and in black and white).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)