On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 10:50:09 -0700, wrote:

...snip....
Does anyone know any better ways to clean them?

Other electronics have the same problem. Computer keyboards are the
worst. Things like a police scanner are another tough one, with all
their buttons.

Any suggestions or tips?



Wash your hands?

I know, I know, I couldn't help it. It's true that even if your hands are
clean, human flesh gets all over those things and forms a waxy, difficult
to remove pile up of gunk. A paper towel damp with Clorox will almost
instantly wipe off that gunk. To protect your fingers from the bleach,
just stick you hand into a quart sized freezer ziploc bag and hold the
towel with the bag. Why freezer and not a swandwich bag? Because the
sandwich bags are so thin the bleach will go THROUGH the plastic, fumes
accumulate in the bag, and the bleach will burn your flesh, literally
oxidize your flesh, which is the definition of burning.

For MY telephones, and mice, to prevent destroying the plastic housing; I
disassemble to bare plastic parts and then wash those parts in a sink of
dish detergent. Keyboards? I've been provided so many at clients'
locations that I simply used 409 on a paper towel that can get down in
between, but not really wet anything. Obviously, I didn't care if the 409
hurt their keyboards or not.

I've had excellent performance from a quaternary compound used to sanitize
patient examination rooms, [which means kills stuff but not people or
pets] made by Brulins in Indiana, called Unicide 256. You actually mix it
256:1 and the resulting diluted compound is equivalent to full strength
bleach in its killing power. The stuff is absolutely amazing, you can
polish metal with it, remove paint, do all kinds of things. Check at your
local janitorial supply they probably sell it. I usually buy it wholesale
directly from Brulins, from memory it's around $128+ for a case of four
gallon jugs. We go through it faster than I like, because I can't get wife
to mix more dilute than 10:1 or so! She soaks her jewelry in it, for
cleaning. Doesn't harm stones, metal, etc, actually polishes the metal to
where her rings look like they went through a jeweler's ultrasonic
cleaner. Oh, yeah, before saving any coins, I drop coins in a small tray
of the stuff. Shiney in no time. A penny goes from dull brown to mintlike
finish in around 30 seconds, too long and yecch!

Window Cleaners like Walmart Glass Cleaner, Windex, etc, although handy
and cheap and effective, are not usually a good idea, because the alcohol
in them can craze the surface and deteriorate the plastic badly over time.