I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.
--
When I am in the kitchen, I often kick one of my cat's balls.
After I kick it, he will sometimes play with it for a few
seconds to several minutes. His favorite are the ones that
rattle. He'll play with any ball that makes noise.

In article ,
Daniel Prince wrote:

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

"Tweek" was a rebranded version of Stabilant 22A (which is Stabilant
22, diluted in isopropyl alcohol). "Tweek" is no longer being
marketed by the rebrander, but Stabilant 22 is still available from
the original manufacturer and their distributors:

http://stabilant.com/

I've used it for quite a few years, and it does seem to work as
advertised... it's eliminated a bunch of contact-related problems and
crashes in computer systems I own and maintain.

It's not a contact clear/deoxidizer, although it probably does have
some cleaning action simply because in its diluted form it's mostly
isopropyl alcohol. If your contacts are dirty, save some money and
clean them with pure isopropyl alcohol first, then apply the Stabilant
sparingly. If they're heavily oxidized or corroded, you'll want to
deal with that via a separate cleaning process first.

Their smallest standard package is 5 ml of concentrate, which is
usually diluted 4:1 or 5:1 in isopropyl alcohol to make a working
solution. This should be enough to last you for a lifetime!

Since I usually apply Stabiliant to small connectors, I prefer the
liquid form (diluted as recommended), applied with a small brush or
Q-tip. Less wasteful that way. I don't really see the sense to
spraying a "contact enhancer" around using an aerosol... most of it is
going to go where it does no good.

I have only limited experience with other "contact enhancers". I've
used Cramolin (the original red/blue concentrate bottles), DeOxIt, and
various homebrew formulas... but these are more contact cleaners /
oxide removers than "contact enhancers". In fact, some of these
products really need to be thoroughly removed from contacts (or
neutralized) after use - leaving a residue of them on the contacts can
eventually degrade the contacts.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

On Monday, December 10, 2012 12:42:56 PM UTC-8, Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact

enhancer.

Çaig laboratories sells a variety of enhancers, with DeOxit, Preservit as
their main tradenames, which are easily available (try Radio Shack
for instance). Some are cleaners only, try to understand the
usage notes to find which are the enhancers.

Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.
I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-2...l#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Greg

gregz wrote:
Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.
I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-2...l#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Greg

Had to mention, using the red tube extension works well, in that you can
get small amounts, and it foams as it comes flowing easily into components.

Greg

In article ,
gregz wrote:

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.

I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-2...l#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Well... CRC 2-26 is advertised as a multi-purpose lubricant and
moisture-eliminator. I'm not sure I'd consider it a "contact
enhancer", except incidentally.

According to the MSDS, its ingredients are petroleum distillates,
mineral oil, a bit of sulfonic acids (which I suspect provide some
detergent action), some (2-methoxymethylethoxy) propanol (appears to
be a glycol ether, used as a solvent), and propellants.

Not terribly different from WD-40... probably flushes and cleans a bit
better due to the solvents and surfactants.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Dave Platt wrote:
In article ,
gregz wrote:

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.

I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-2...l#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Well... CRC 2-26 is advertised as a multi-purpose lubricant and
moisture-eliminator. I'm not sure I'd consider it a "contact
enhancer", except incidentally.

According to the MSDS, its ingredients are petroleum distillates,
mineral oil, a bit of sulfonic acids (which I suspect provide some
detergent action), some (2-methoxymethylethoxy) propanol (appears to
be a glycol ether, used as a solvent), and propellants.

Not terribly different from WD-40... probably flushes and cleans a bit
better due to the solvents and surfactants.

I would describe it as a little thicker than wd-40. The front of the can
shows an electrical connection, and says improves electrical properties.
Plastic safe.

Greg

"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



..... Phil

"gregz" wrote in message
...
Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.
I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-2...l#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Greg


Interesting that you've cleaned a MAF. Petrol or diesel ? Did you find
cleaning worked ? If so, by 'feel' of performance or by looking at the
numbers ? Reason that I ask is that I had MAF issues on my wife's diesel
Land Rover Disco TD5, soon after it was bought SH from a dealer. The dealer
cleaned the MAF, and declared it ok then by the numbers. However, it wasn't
ok. The low end performance was appalling, making it quite dangerous to pull
out of some junctions. After some to-ing and fro-ing with the dealer, I did
some research on the net, and the initial advice was to just disconnect it
to force the ECU back to the default fuel map. If this made it run right,
the further advice was to replace it, and to do so with either an original
or OEM part. Looking into this further, I found that although deposits on
the actual sensor wire(s) can cause problems, by far the more common problem
is that due to the elevated temperature that the wire is driven to as part
of the way the sensor works, its characteristic curve alters over time, and
its output falls in general. The reason that you apparently shouldn't use
the cheapo ones on the net is that their linearity tends to be poor, and
they can be quite short lived. Apparently, many use a diode as the sensing
element, rather than a wire or a tiny bead thermistor.

With my one disconnected, the engine ran brilliantly, so I bit the bullet
and just bought an OEM one from a Landy dealer's spares department. When I
took the old one out, it had indeed been totally cleaned, and the wires were
spotless, but never-the-less, it still didn't work properly. The new one,
when fitted, did, and continues to do so, so just interested in your
findings for cleaning yours.

Arfa

"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...

"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil


Agreed in principle Phil, but I guess it depends on what starting point you
are 'enhancing' from. If you've got a nice clean set of contacts that are
working well, then no amount of anything on them is going to improve that.
However, I guess you could say that a contact lubricant applied sparingly,
might preserve that condition for longer than would otherwise be the case,
by preventing early oxidation of the contact surfaces. Of course, if they
are precious metal plated, that argument wouldn't hold water. If, however,
you have a set of contacts that are already performing badly, then I suppose
you could say that a squib of a decent quality proprietary switch cleaner /
lubricant, would 'enhance' the performance of those contacts. All of us in
the electronic service industry use such products on a daily basis for
cleaning switch contacts and pots etc. My one of choice for many years has
been a Servisol product called "Super 10"

eg

http://www.rapidonline.com/mechanica...-200ml-87-0770

Arfa

"Arfa Daily"
"Phil Allison"
"Daniel Prince"
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil


Agreed in principle Phil, but I guess it depends on what starting point
you are 'enhancing' from.


** FFS Arthur - HAVE A LOOK on Ebay or Google under the OP's heading.

The concoctions being offered are all SNAKE OIL !!

Contact cleaner /lubricant products ( like WD40 ) are NOT the issue here.



.... Phil

On Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:55:29 AM UTC-5, Arfa Daily wrote:


With my one disconnected, the engine ran brilliantly, so I bit the bullet

and just bought an OEM one from a Landy dealer's spares department. When I

took the old one out, it had indeed been totally cleaned, and the wires were

spotless, but never-the-less, it still didn't work properly. The new one,

when fitted, did, and continues to do so, so just interested in your

findings for cleaning yours.


When MAF sensors were fairly new, I bought a very low mileage Ford van (U.S..) at an auction with the check engine light on. It started and idled fine, but as soon as it started to rev past 2K, it would fall on it's face and ping badly. Only codes retrieved indicated both banks lean. I brought it to a guy well known in the area as being know to be good with this new fangled stuff, he played with it an hour, and told me to return it for a day when I could spare it. I never got back to drop it off, but after a couple of months running it this way, I decided to pull the MAF connector off to see if there was any change, and it ran perfectly. It pulled hard to redline up shift, and the ping was gone. I pulled the MAF meter out of it, and saw two wires. One was white and one was black, except the black one was black on the incoming air side only. I cleaned it off with a q-tip and flux remover, stuck it back in, and problem gone. I still have that van as my backup, has over 250K on it with the original MAF, still passes emissions testing, and I clean the MAF every year or so when I think about it. Over the years, it became a well known problem with 90s era Fords.

"Arfa Daily" wrote:
"gregz" wrote in message
...
Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

I got a few bottles, sprays, concoctions. Been a while since I used my
stabilant.
I just used some non residue cleaner on a MAF sensor. Depends how get down
and dirty I need to go. What I most use these days is CRC lube which is an
enhancer. It's cheap and available. I also got tubes of caigs concentrated
items.

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/crc-2-2...l#.UMaD5qN5mSM

Greg


Interesting that you've cleaned a MAF. Petrol or diesel ? Did you find
cleaning worked ? If so, by 'feel' of performance or by looking at the
numbers ? Reason that I ask is that I had MAF issues on my wife's diesel
Land Rover Disco TD5, soon after it was bought SH from a dealer. The
dealer cleaned the MAF, and declared it ok then by the numbers. However,
it wasn't ok. The low end performance was appalling, making it quite
dangerous to pull out of some junctions. After some to-ing and fro-ing
with the dealer, I did some research on the net, and the initial advice
was to just disconnect it to force the ECU back to the default fuel map.
If this made it run right, the further advice was to replace it, and to
do so with either an original or OEM part. Looking into this further, I
found that although deposits on the actual sensor wire(s) can cause
problems, by far the more common problem is that due to the elevated
temperature that the wire is driven to as part of the way the sensor
works, its characteristic curve alters over time, and its output falls in
general. The reason that you apparently shouldn't use the cheapo ones on
the net is that their linearity tends to be poor, and they can be quite
short lived. Apparently, many use a diode as the sensing element, rather
than a wire or a tiny bead thermistor.

With my one disconnected, the engine ran brilliantly, so I bit the bullet
and just bought an OEM one from a Landy dealer's spares department. When
I took the old one out, it had indeed been totally cleaned, and the wires
were spotless, but never-the-less, it still didn't work properly. The new
one, when fitted, did, and continues to do so, so just interested in your
findings for cleaning yours.

Arfa

Nothing noticed, but after changing plugs and wires and cleaning, hope to
increase mpg. I disconnected it on one car and it idled better. Had
problems with manifold.

Greg

Daniel Prince wrote:

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.
Some time ago I had a Conrac color video monitor out of a TV station.
it had a LOT of Molex or AMP Mate-n-lock connectors in it, with
tin-plated contacts. There was HORRIBLE green goo growing all
over the contacts, and it made the monitor unreliable. I can only
assume somebody at the station had a pencant to apply some sort
of "contact enhancer" to everything, but it sure made a mess
of this unit. I don't know what brand they used. I've always been
leery of that type of stuff, but at least in one case, whatever
they did sure backfired. (Not that I'm any fan of stock Molex
or Mate-n-lock connectors, either!)

Jon

Phil Allison wrote:


"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.
Yeah, I really agree with you on this, Phil!

Jon

"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...

"Arfa Daily"
"Phil Allison"
"Daniel Prince"
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil


Agreed in principle Phil, but I guess it depends on what starting point
you are 'enhancing' from.


** FFS Arthur - HAVE A LOOK on Ebay or Google under the OP's heading.

The concoctions being offered are all SNAKE OIL !!

Contact cleaner /lubricant products ( like WD40 ) are NOT the issue here.



... Phil


Ok. Fair enough. I guess I was taking 'contact' & 'enhancer' as two words
that the OP was using to convey the concept of switch cleaner. I hadn't
realised that there was a separate group of products out there called
"contact enhancers". Having now looked, yes, absolutely. Snake oil. Pretty
much like the snake oil audio cables and mains filters that get so much
discussion on the audio groups ...

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:


Ok. Fair enough. I guess I was taking 'contact' & 'enhancer' as two words
that the OP was using to convey the concept of switch cleaner. I hadn't
realised that there was a separate group of products out there called
"contact enhancers". Having now looked, yes, absolutely. Snake oil. Pretty
much like the snake oil audio cables and mains filters that get so much
discussion on the audio groups ...
Well, the MOST amazing coincidence is that the people who "lap up"
this stuff are the SAME people with the gold-plated welding cables
for their 50 W tube amps! What are the chances???

Jon

"Phil Allison" wrote:


"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil

I originally bought the Tweek because Jerry Pournelle recommended it
in his column in Byte magazine. Has any magazine published
objective, scientific tests of Tweek, DeoxIT Gold or any other
contact enhancers?
--
When a cat sits in a human's lap both the human and the cat are usually
happy. The human is happy because he thinks the cat is sitting on him/her
because it loves her/him. The cat is happy because it thinks that by sitting
on the human it is dominant over the human.

Daniel Prince wrote:
"Phil Allison" wrote:


"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil

I originally bought the Tweek because Jerry Pournelle recommended it
in his column in Byte magazine. Has any magazine published
objective, scientific tests of Tweek, DeoxIT Gold or any other
contact enhancers?

I have done a little testing myself. Just take some flat metal and some
leads, VOM.
Scrape around bare metal vs applied lubes or whatever. I get some positive
results vs dry metal.

Greg

On Monday, December 10, 2012 8:14:06 PM UTC-8, Phil Allison wrote:
"Daniel Prince"



I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some...
I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in [various forms]

** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.

The advertising and marketing DOES look like snake-oil, but there's
some real technology behind it. A small amount of residue contains
a liquid semiconductor, which is the active part of Stabilant-22 and
DeOxit Shield S. NATO stocks the stuff (NSN 6850-01-435-6479 is
the stock number) for aviation and other high-reliability electronics applications.

The original patents have run out (issued about 1970), so the sales literature
no longer touts this very real electrical contact improvement.

** Such products only work if you believe in them.
Like crystals and pyramids, etc.

The advertising and marketing DOES look like snake-oil, but there's
some real technology behind it. A small amount of residue contains
a liquid semiconductor, which is the active part of Stabilant-22 and
DeOxit Shield S. NATO stocks the stuff (NSN 6850-01-435-6479 is
the stock number) for aviation and other high-reliability electronics
applications.

There's no question they improve the contact. The issue is whether they
improve the sound. I find this unlikely. However, all the audio connections in
my system have been treated with Caig Red and Gold products (as appropriate).
Why shouldn't they be clean?

When I worked for RCA at NOAA, one of the computers had problems with the edge
contacts on its memory board. No amount of conventional cleaning helped, but
Cramolin Red fixed it -- for a while (several days).

"whit3rd"
Phil Allison wrote:
"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some...
I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in [various forms]

** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.

The advertising and marketing DOES look like snake-oil, but there's
some real technology behind it.


** Pseudo technology.

Just like all the asinine **** you spew.




..... Phil

On Saturday, December 15, 2012 11:55:49 AM UTC-8, William Sommerwerck wrote:

When I worked for RCA at NOAA, one of the computers had problems with the edge

contacts on its memory board. No amount of conventional cleaning helped, but

Cramolin Red fixed it -- for a while (several days).

The red is (I believe) the same as DeOxit, and is a cleaner only. Clean
doesn't last. The blue (PreserVit or somesuch) had the lubricant/enhancer
component. That (blue) has now been renamed DeOxit Shield.

On Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:42:56 -0800, Daniel Prince
wrote:

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

If you must, Cramolin, if you can find it. Caig red is you can't.

Or you can mix your own, as I've done (mostly for curiosity). Whatever
commercial product you select, look on the MSDS sheet for the
ingredients. Favorite cleaner mix so far is naphtha (Coleman camp
fuel) and a tiny amount of oleic acid (available on eBay). I don't
use a "contact enhancer" as I don't think it's possible. See below.

However, there's a problem. If you think about it, the idea behind a
contact CLEANER is to remove any oxide (or sulfide) coating on the
contacts. That's usually done with a weak acid, such as oleic acid or
vinegar. Both will eventually attack copper, so it has to be followed
by a water and alcohol rinse. However, that leaves the contact
material again exposed to attack by various aromatics, which will soon
return the contacts to their previous oxidized state. Enter the
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly. If allowed to mix with dirt, it becomes an
insulating layer, which makes things even worse than just dirty
contacts. Leave off the grease and high pressure contacts, such as on
some older rotary switches, will eventually gouge their way through
the plating material and expose the base metal, which will promptly
oxidize or tarnish. Of course, all this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication. Wash with your favorite cleaner or solvent, and
leave the gold alone.

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

I use a syringe. The pressurized cans with the red nozzle usually
consume far too much lube and always make a mess, which is the plan so
that you'll use up the can quicker. With a small syringe, it's much
easier to get into tight areas, and dispense a controlled amount. I
have a small supply of medical glass syringes with *BLUNT* tips. Also
available on eBay). Plastic syringes with a rubber plunger seals will
work, but are eventually attacked by solvents.

More on cleaners:
http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=82058&start=40

Drivel: In a past life, I used to design marine radios. Corrosion
and corruption (fungus growth) were constant problems. The
conventional wisdom was to select the contact plating correctly (i.e.
gold is only for "dry" contacts, silver if it carries power), and to
not give the crud anything to stick to (i.e. no lubes, oils, greases,
or goo). The contacts could look fairly oxidized and disgusting, but
as long as the fairly tiny contact surfaces were clean, there would
not be a problem. Standard procedure for factory repair was to hose
the exposed contacts (rotary switches and relays) with solvent to
remove the contact cleaner grease residue deposited by the dealer.

Coax connectors were another problem. Some brilliant marketing person
decided that filling the coax connector with "dielectric" silicon
grease would make it waterproof. That works, but it also put a layer
of insulating silicon grease on the contact surfaces of the connector.
No water in the connector, but also no connection. Cleaning out the
grease completely is difficult.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

....
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1589/.f?sc=2&category=185

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact. There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface. At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface. We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

...
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1589/.f?sc=2&category=185

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact. There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface. At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface. We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

I got some Cramolin copper grease. I never used it, but someday ?

My view on lube. Somewhat why oil works for sharpening, helps push aside
oxides, might also soften them.

Greg

On Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:37:04 -0800 (PST), whit3rd
wrote:

On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

...
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1589/.f?sc=2&category=185

Bad example. There are carbon doped greases that are used mostly to
dissipate static electricity between sliding surfaces and to lubricate
mechanical switches. It doesn't take much resistivity to be
considered "conductive".
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/...e-grease-846/?
117 ohm-cm bulk resistivity. There are also some silver doped
greases. I have no clue what those are for, but they should have
better conductivity than carbon doping.

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact.

As in cold weld? That does happen, but the adhesion forces to the
nickel base metal is stronger than the wiping forces, so the gold
stays in place on the contacts (unless the plating is really soft and
thick). Here's the rules of the game for gold:
http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/aurulrep.pdf

There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface.

Gold oxide is an insulator. I did some googling and couldn't find any
references mentioning such an oxide coating on gold. Certainly
aluminum is protected by an oxide coating, but methinks not gold. To
the best of my knowledge (at this late hour) gold's primary attribute
is its resistance to oxidation.

At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface.

Nobody plates contacts with pure gold. Nickel and Cobalt are added to
make "hard gold". There's also an under-plating of nickel, on which
surface the gold is plated. If one gets the contacts hot enough, the
nickel will diffuse through the gold plating, get exposed to air, and
oxidize or tarnish forming nickel sulfate. If the gold has a greenish
tint, you have nickel sulfate. That might be what's happening.

We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

When I was building marine radios, we used big 0.156 gold edge
connectors for everything. Dry loads, high power, DC, RF, whatever,
it all used the same 50 micro inch gold plated connectors. We had a
few problems, but never any env test failures. I even built a machine
that would insert and retract the cards repetitively until the
connection showed some "noise". I gave up after about 10,000 cycles
and no noise appeared. Inspection under a microscope showed that none
of the hard gold had migrated.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

Maybe, but I would want to know the failure mode of your PCIe
connectors before I passed judgment.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 12/18/2012 11:37 PM, whit3rd wrote:
On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

...
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1589/.f?sc=2&category=185

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact. There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface. At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface. We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

Gold on boards isn't anything like pure, and the cheap stuff has lots of
gaps in its surface coverage. Depending on the pH, you can get a
monolayer of gold oxide on a surface, or (interestingly) a monolayer of
water, which it turns out forms a _hydrophobic_ surface, since all the
available hydrogen bonding sites are hidden.

(I was going to answer that gold didn't oxidize, but checked first, and
found this interesting paper: http://tinyurl.com/c34olw3 .)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

On Dec 19, 2:08*am, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:37:04 -0800 (PST), whit3rd
wrote:

On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

...
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. *You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. *However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1589/.f?sc=2&category=185

Bad example. *There are carbon doped greases that are used mostly to
dissipate static electricity between sliding surfaces and to lubricate
mechanical switches. *It doesn't take much resistivity to be
considered "conductive".
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/...nts/conductive...
117 ohm-cm bulk resistivity. *There are also some silver doped
greases. *I have no clue what those are for, but they should have
better conductivity than carbon doping.

I've got a tube of silver grease, that we bought but never used...
it's shoved to the back of my 'gunk' drawer.
It reads,"Typical applications include lubrication of switches or
circuit breakers, heat dissipation from transformers, or static
grounding on seals or O-rings."

Contains Silver, dimethyl poly-siloxane, carbon black.

George H.

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact.

As in cold weld? *That does happen, but the adhesion forces to the
nickel base metal is stronger than the wiping forces, so the gold
stays in place on the contacts (unless the plating is really soft and
thick). *Here's the rules of the game for gold:
http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/aurulrep.pdf

There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. *But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface.

Gold oxide is an insulator. *I did some googling and couldn't find any
references mentioning such an oxide coating on gold. *Certainly
aluminum is protected by an oxide coating, but methinks not gold. *To
the best of my knowledge (at this late hour) gold's primary attribute
is its resistance to oxidation.

At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface.

Nobody plates contacts with pure gold. *Nickel and Cobalt are added to
make "hard gold". *There's also an under-plating of nickel, on which
surface the gold is plated. *If one gets the contacts hot enough, the
nickel will diffuse through the gold plating, get exposed to air, and
oxidize or tarnish forming nickel sulfate. *If the gold has a greenish
tint, you have nickel sulfate. *That might be what's happening.

We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

When I was building marine radios, we used big 0.156 gold edge
connectors for everything. *Dry loads, high power, DC, RF, whatever,
it all used the same 50 micro inch gold plated connectors. *We had a
few problems, but never any env test failures. *I even built a machine
that would insert and retract the cards repetitively until the
connection showed some "noise". *I gave up after about 10,000 cycles
and no noise appeared. *Inspection under a microscope showed that none
of the hard gold had migrated.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

Maybe, but I would want to know the failure mode of your PCIe
connectors before I passed judgment.

--
Jeff Liebermann * *
150 Felker St #D * *http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann * * AE6KS * *831-336-2558

On Dec 19, 10:03*am, Phil Hobbs
wrote:
On 12/18/2012 11:37 PM, whit3rd wrote:





On Sunday, December 16, 2012 6:24:58 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

...
contact preservative, which is just a coating of oil or grease. *You
can do as well with almost any thin grease. *However, note that all of
them are non-conductive, so adding grease increases the contact
resistance slightly.

Not entirely true; some conductive greases ARE available, including
transparent ones that aren't easy to tell from 'normal' grease

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1589/.f?sc=2&category=185

...this applies only to tin and
silver contacts, but not gold, which doesn't tarnish, oxidize, or
require lubrication.

If gold really DIDN'T oxidize, it'd weld to itself on contact. *There's
no crust of oxide, not even a micron thick layer. *But, there's a nanometer
of oxide, all over any gold surface. * At elevated temperature and humidity,
even a clean gold/gold connection will fail, because something grows
on that gold surface. *We lowered the storage humidity spec and our PC-based
product stopped getting memory and video and PCIe errors at the environment
test lab.

Lubricant might not be irrelevant, after all, on gold contacts.

Gold on boards isn't anything like pure, and the cheap stuff has lots of
gaps in its surface coverage. * Depending on the pH, you can get a
monolayer of gold oxide on a surface, or (interestingly) a monolayer of
water, which it turns out forms a _hydrophobic_ surface, since all the
available hydrogen bonding sites are hidden.

(I was going to answer that gold didn't oxidize, but checked first, and
found this interesting paper:http://tinyurl.com/c34olw3.)

Thanks for the paper. Years ago I made this bouncing gold wire
quantum contact gizmo. After sitting for a while it wouldn't work as
well and I'd wipe the wires with a 'gold cleaning solution' that was
used in a lab I visited. I think the ‘recipe’ for the solution was 2
parts ethanol, one part toluene and one part methanol. (But it could
have been acetone instead of methanol?) This worked.. but it could
have just been the act of wiping that cleaned the surface.

George H.


Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot nethttp://electrooptical.net- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

gregz wrote:
Daniel Prince wrote:
"Phil Allison" wrote:


"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil

I originally bought the Tweek because Jerry Pournelle recommended it
in his column in Byte magazine. Has any magazine published
objective, scientific tests of Tweek, DeoxIT Gold or any other
contact enhancers?

I have done a little testing myself. Just take some flat metal and some
leads, VOM.
Scrape around bare metal vs applied lubes or whatever. I get some positive
results vs dry metal.

Greg

Anybody do anything using VCI emitters. A long time ago I got samples from
a wadia guy, never used those. I wonder if it's still good. Also used
Bullfrog spray electronic protector cleaner, smelled like maple Syrup.
Never could conclude anything. I do remember the little sheets often packed
around mechanical switches, especially silvered. Some areas outside the
paper had a lot of oxide.

Greg

gregz wrote:
gregz wrote:
Daniel Prince wrote:
"Phil Allison" wrote:


"Daniel Prince"

I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact
enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?

I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you
apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form
do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.


** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.



.... Phil

I originally bought the Tweek because Jerry Pournelle recommended it
in his column in Byte magazine. Has any magazine published
objective, scientific tests of Tweek, DeoxIT Gold or any other
contact enhancers?

I have done a little testing myself. Just take some flat metal and some
leads, VOM.
Scrape around bare metal vs applied lubes or whatever. I get some positive
results vs dry metal.

Greg

Anybody do anything using VCI emitters. A long time ago I got samples from
a wadia guy, never used those. I wonder if it's still good. Also used
Bullfrog spray electronic protector cleaner, smelled like maple Syrup.
Never could conclude anything. I do remember the little sheets often packed
around mechanical switches, especially silvered. Some areas outside the
paper had a lot of oxide.

Greg

Don wadia Moses, the wadia guy.
He sure did some ****. Passed way in 2008.

Greg

"Phil Allison" wrote:

** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.

Crystals DO work. My digital watch has a quartz crystal that works
as an oscillator to keep the time. It also has liquid crystals that
work as displays.

I have an electronic lighter I use to light candles. It has a
piezoelectric crystal that works to generate sparks.

Diamonds are crystals. They work as abrasives in various types of
saws, grinding wheels and drills. Sapphire is a crystal. It works
as a phonograph needle.
--
When a cat sits in a human's lap both the human and the cat are usually
happy. The human is happy because he thinks the cat is sitting on him/her
because it loves her/him. The cat is happy because it thinks that by sitting
on the human it is dominant over the human.

On Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:56:29 -0800, Daniel Prince wrote:
"Phil Allison" wrote:

** Such products only work if you believe in them.

Like crystals and pyramids etc.

Crystals DO work. My digital watch has a quartz crystal that works
as an oscillator to keep the time. It also has liquid crystals that
work as displays.

I have an electronic lighter I use to light candles. It has a
piezoelectric crystal that works to generate sparks.

Diamonds are crystals. They work as abrasives in various types of
saws, grinding wheels and drills. Sapphire is a crystal. It works
as a phonograph needle.

Diamonds also work to keep a woman happy.

On Monday, December 10, 2012 8:42:56 PM UTC, Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact

enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?



I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you

apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form

do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

--

When I am in the kitchen, I often kick one of my cat's balls.

After I kick it, he will sometimes play with it for a few

seconds to several minutes. His favorite are the ones that

rattle. He'll play with any ball that makes noise.



Hi

We sell Stabilant 22A. You can buy it at sibert.co.uk

I have both Tweek and Stabilant 22A. I have never been convinced they provide
any meaningful improvement in conductivity or sound quality.

Is there something wrong with Caig products? At least they clean the surface,
a useful step before applying an enhancer.

On 6/11/2014 9:13 AM, wrote:
On Monday, December 10, 2012 8:42:56 PM UTC, Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact

enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?



I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you

apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form

do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

--

When I am in the kitchen, I often kick one of my cat's balls.

Stop being cruel!


---
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"William Sommerwerck" wrote:
I have both Tweek and Stabilant 22A. I have never been convinced they
provide any meaningful improvement in conductivity or sound quality.

Is there something wrong with Caig products? At least they clean the
surface, a useful step before applying an enhancer.

I was having trouble with my golf cart. Backup warning microswitch was
mostly not working. Took switch off, squirted some CRC 2-26 into the
button, worked several times. Works now. It enhanced the contact.

Greg

On Wednesday, June 11, 2014 7:13:45 AM UTC-7, wrote:

When I am in the kitchen, I often kick one of my cat's balls.




Another case of cruelty to animals, eh?

wrote:

On Monday, December 10, 2012 8:42:56 PM UTC, Daniel Prince wrote:
I cannot find my bottle of Tweek so I need to buy some new contact

enhancer. Which one do you use and recommend?



I have looked on eBay and contact enhancers come in liquids that you

apply with a brush, squeeze tubes, and aerosol sprays. Which form

do you think is best? Thank you in advance for all replies.

--

When I am in the kitchen, I often kick one of my cat's balls.

After I kick it, he will sometimes play with it for a few

seconds to several minutes. His favorite are the ones that

rattle. He'll play with any ball that makes noise.

Hi

We sell Stabilant 22A. You can buy it at sibert.co.uk


You replied to a post from 2012. Do you think they were waiting for
you to spam them?


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

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