Adrian Tuddenham wrote:
Cydrome Leader wrote:

Mark Zenier wrote:
In article ,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Left alone, the base metal will rust
or corrode. I smear on some grease to slow down the corrosion, but
find that it's not really adequate. I wouldn't mind painting the
contacts with clear acrylic after masking the contact area, but that's
often difficult or awkward to accomplish.

I've had reasonable results using the green anti-oxidant grease to
ressurect some old metal flashlights that got seriously crudded up.
I think it's original use is for copper-aluminium connections.

...

If you are in the EU, you can buy a better cleaner called Cramolin, which
used to be sold by the people who sell DeOxit. Post 9/11 the Cramolin
products can not be shipped by air in the US, so DeOxit was created by
their US distributor to fill the gap.

Urban Legend Alert!

I sure as hell wouldn't try carrying it in my luggage, but I've got
an old posting somewhere in my archive from some salesman at Cramonlin,
(made long before 9/11), that they broke off the distribution deal because
the American distributor was claiming they invented it. (There was also
some reformulation going on around that time for the spray can versions,
due to the Freon ban).

"Real" Cramolin is the factory recommended treatment for connection
problems with engine control computers for various German made cars.
"Recommended" might be too weak, more like "Only method allowed".
Try the parts department at your local VW or Beemer dealer.

Not sure it's related, but german vehicles seem to have plenty of
electrical problems, ranging from harness fires to simple stuff
like headlight connectors burning out. They just don't get it.

I'd steer clear away from anything german+automotive+electrical.

In the U.K., Volvo use mainly German electrics. The components aren't
all that bad but the overall system looks as though it was designed by
someone on a 'work experience' course having a bad day.

It's not a large pool of data, but work on some machines that were made in
West Germany as well as the US version that were completely designed and
made in the USA just after that, around 1990.

The german stuff is as you'd expect, overly complex with everything on din
rails, but lots of tiny ones, there's stuff cabled tied up to the point
you can't trace anything and lots of the cables aren't even labelled. And
of course, since it's german, they use slotted screws for everything so
everything is marred up from screwdrivers slipping all over the place.

They do still work, with mostly new timers and relays.

The american stuff is far superior. There's just one control board,
everything is marked and the nothing is 5 times too large because stuff
isn't forced to clip onto those rediculous DIN rails. They also decided to
not put half the relays on the control board, the other half on the inside
of the control panel and rest somewhere else.

It's just a more thought out design.