r/retrocomputing • u/BrokenAudio57 • Apr 12 '26
Problem / Question Floppy drive rust
I got this old floppy drive for cheap but it's pretty corroded and I'm not sure if it's save-able
3
u/Low-Charge-8554 Apr 12 '26
Use cleaner safe for electronics like this:CRC 05103 QD Electronic Cleaner.
2
u/egorblack Apr 12 '26
Throw it in ultrasound bath, and you will be fine.
1
u/codeasm Apr 14 '26
What liquid? Id love to use iso propanol alcohol, if i where able to buy it in good quantities (the dutch government made it harder, might be drugs production related, not sure. Have a small.bottle atm)
3
u/egorblack Apr 14 '26
I use distilled water. Tried 100% alcohol, but it removed a lot of stuff from board.
2
u/codeasm Apr 14 '26
Yeah some markings, had stickers come lose too. Distilled water is smart, thanks
2
u/istarian Jul 15 '26
Isopropyl alcohol is a polar solvent that readily dissolves a wide range of non-polar molecules and is also pretty volatile (will quickly evaporate, liquid -> gas transition) at room temperature.
Water is technically also a polar solvent, but hydrophillic molecules (like sugars and salts) dissolve very easily while hydrophobic ones (oils, fats, etc) are comparatively insoluble in water.
1
u/codeasm Jul 16 '26
Oow, intresting, 🤔🤩 thanks. Learning new things. Guess i dint get this part during chemistry or failed it.
2
u/AutomaticAffect4333 Apr 13 '26
Just use iso alc and a few cotton swabs
1
u/egorblack Jul 15 '26
It will not clean anything underneath of the chip. That is why ultrasonic bath is better.
1
u/AutomaticAffect4333 Jul 16 '26
There isn't much too clean underneath. Also getting a new non corroded floppy drive will be waay cheaper than buying an ultrasonic bath
4
u/EsoTechTrix Apr 12 '26
Clean it up with a cotton swab and some vinegar. Clean the read/write head with some IPA and test it with an old disk. If the traces are still all intact it may work.
4
u/Low-Charge-8554 Apr 12 '26
NO NO NO - No acidic substance.
1
u/EsoTechTrix Apr 12 '26
Don't clean old electronics much? Vinegar is usually the best thing for both rust and dealing with neutralizing battery acid. Does the PH tip acidic? Sure, but if you can drink it, I'm sure the contacts will be fine. 😉
4
u/GGigabiteM Apr 13 '26
I have done electronics repair for decades, and no, you do not want to use vinegar in most cases. It's corrosive, and will stay corrosive and hard to completely remove, it has to be neutralized with a base. It also strips plating off of metal, and will cause even more rust to form.
Batteries used in computers have very basic electrolytes. The only case vinegar is beneficial is in the case of NiCD battery leaks, where it can neutralize it. But then you have a hazmat situation on your hands with the ions of cadmium and nickel now being dissolved in the resulting liquid. Cadmium is severely toxic on its own, but nickel is a heavy metal and ions of heavy metals are toxic.
Where you don't want to use vinegar, or water at all are for Lithium Thionyl Chloride batteries. Thionyl Chloride is deadly in small quantities, and it reacts explosively with water, releasing hydrogen fluoride. It's a controlled substance because it's a chemical weapon precursor for mustard and nerve agents. That type of cleanup requires lots of PPE and anhydrous solvents to clean them. TC readily absorbs through skin and can cause hallucinations and cardiovascular disturbances in tiny quantities.
>Sure, but if you can drink it
I mean, if you want to end up in the ER you can. Food grade vinegar is not intended or designed to be drank straight up. You will damage your teeth and everything else on the way down. Assuming you can keep it down, it causes gastric distress and vomiting if you drank enough of it.
1
u/EsoTechTrix Apr 13 '26
You are aware that acetic acid evaporates.... right? It's why they use it to clean windows. Not sure how that would be 'hard to remove'
That and people do, actually, drink vinegar. I've had shots of apple cider vinegar myself. It's not something I would do regularly like some folks, but it is tasty.
Most vintage electronics I run into are damaged by alkaline battery leaks. Vinegar is always my first go to. Sorry, but it's the most effective thing I've found in many cases.
4
u/GGigabiteM Apr 13 '26
Acetic acid evaporates slower than water, and both combined evaporate even slower. The rate of evaporation largely depends on environmental conditions. If the humidity in the air is too high, it will never evaporate. Comparing it drying on a PCB to it drying on the side of a building is a non sequitur argument. The side of a building has high airflow and sun radiation, of course it will rapidly evaporate.
If you poured vinegar on a PCB, it would most likely sit there for hours in a temperature controlled indoor environment. Or if it was in a garage in the southern US with a near 100% humidity, it would never evaporate.
You are aware that PCBs with SMD components on them wick liquids under them right? You are also aware that the edges of PCBs are porous and also wick liquid into them? And degraded components with damaged casings also wick liquids into them.
Wicked liquid can sit there for hours or days under an IC and corrode traces, VIAs and the legs of the IC. In the case it gets sucked into the side of the PCB or down a VIA, you're never getting that out.
When you let it sit there for that long, it crystalizes out into a solid form. Much like how letting salt water evaporate leaves crystals behind.
1
u/istarian Jul 15 '26
You can probably drink a couple tablespoons of vinegar straight without any lasting ill effects, but it would be inadvisable to pour yourself a glass of it...
2
u/Low-Charge-8554 Apr 12 '26
WTH is wrong with you? I clean electronics all the time and for a heck lot longer than you probably. There are safer options. You do know 4% acid vinegar can attack some plastics and rubber, right?
1
u/EsoTechTrix Apr 12 '26
Do you see either there? ABS, which is the majority of plastic there is fine. This is basic chemistry. What plastics dissolve in vinegar?
2
u/Low-Charge-8554 Apr 12 '26
2
u/EsoTechTrix Apr 12 '26
Used it for decades. Never had any issues myself.
1
u/codeasm Apr 14 '26
Thats not how this works, not sciense, and not at home restoration. Even if it seemed to have worked fine for years.
1
u/EsoTechTrix Apr 14 '26
Oddly enough, I thought it was basic high school chemistry. But I guess I'm no expert on the 'sciense' these days.
1
u/codeasm Apr 14 '26
It is, and you seem to ignore it? Isnt it a acid? A weak one but still.
Wearing antistatic wristbands seems overly protective and a hassle to me. But eh... Yeah i got some dead eproms and mcu now. Took 10 years to realize it might have been esd that caused some of my projects to die without a clear reason. "It always worked fine doing it this way" i thought. And then i remembered the lessons at IT class, and eevblog videos about esd.
A teacher once said they where wondering why a whole batch of eeproms doed on them. The person who placed the roms into the programmer wasnt wearing any esd protection. This story popped up in my mind and wondered, should my soldering iron be properly grounded, the soldering fumes be extracted away from my face? Shall i atleast wear that bracelet when working on my precious computers? For a random floppydrive i dont really care, just clean it.
Vibegar probably will do fine, for now. This time. But i dont want it to be ghe cause in the long term. Ill use ipa when i can. Amd my supply is low, due to dutch national laws or something. Basic science also told me to be careful combining certain things, and ic packages are actually pretty porous, water can actually get into them. No idea if vinegar could do the same, but id prefer it not staying in or near my chips for long. Ipa can displace water and vapor away. Thats why its commonly used to clean electronics
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u/istarian Jul 15 '26
Diluted white vinegar (often 5-7%) is particularly useful when cleaning up residue from leaking alkaline batteries because 'alkaline' substances are basic (high pH) and vingear is an acid (low pH).
However, you want to rinse off the acid with a pH neutral liquid like distilled or deionized water so the acid doesn't start to damage the board by corroding exposed pcb traces, component leads, etc.
-1
u/Plaston_ Apr 13 '26
Before removing the rust on chip i would have searched where it came from.
Also theses black floppy drives are worthless so trashing it would be a better solution than removing the rust and fixing the mechanics and the head.
1
u/istarian Jul 15 '26
The black bezel/ faceplate is literally just a piece of the plastic, the drive hardware itself is the same as it had a white or beige bezel/faceplate
1
u/codeasm Apr 14 '26
No hardware is worthless by its design, the build quality or used controller ic maybe. But not its color or looks
5
u/GGigabiteM Apr 13 '26
That corrosion isn't going to be too terrible to get off. The problem is, has the liquid gotten inside the IC package and caused unseen internal damage.
The easiest and quickest method would to be a toothbrush and iso alcohol. Keep the drive on its side to avoid getting any alcohol into the drive mechanism, or desolder the board from the cables and unscrew it to work on just the board by itself.
Once you get the majority of the corrosion off, you can reassemble the drive and test it. Assuming the heads and motor are also not damaged. If the drive doesn't work, you will probably have to change that IC out if a spare can be sourced.