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The green has invaded from a Varta battery

S

seaken

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2016
Messages
580
Location
Shokan, New York
This morning I was digging out some stuff for my North Star Advantage that I am restoring and I found a 286 motherboard in a box. Unfortunately the Varta battery was still attached and there is green all over the board. I cut off the battery and have been thinking about how I might try to save this board. I have had some experience with this battery leakage and the spread of the green on some other systems in the past few years. I have successfully brought a couple of other old boards back to life by cleaning with vinegar with a swab and brush and then washing the board. But this board has a lot more green spread than I have seen on the other boards I have cleaned. But the traces on the board do not seem to be eaten away yet.

I was wondering if I should try immersing the board in a vinegar bath for awhile and then run it through the dishwasher.

What is your opinion? Is immersion in vinegar too risky?

Seaken
 
Hey Seaken,
About a year ago I started to get Interest in doing some repairs on my boxes of old pullouts and upgrades I have done over the last 30 years. Component level repair was new to me and really started liking it. I had 1 board that I thought was toast because of the green creep all over the place, It booted but the keyboards were not working so after some youtube and research I decided to give it a localized vinegar bath. I did remove some components before doing this because I could not see below. The vinegar did damage other traces but they would have failed in time anyway. I found those later after the board would not boot...hahah but after about 8 bodge wires, It booted and is running well. I do believe if I dunked the whole board in vinegar, it would have been counter productive. In My case, I think i cleaned about 25 to 30% of the board with the vinegar. Once I got that thing to boot I was hooked, Really liking my new part time hobby as I'am
semi retired now. Post a pic of it.

Best of luck
Chris
 
Do not immerse the board in vinegar but use it to neutralize the acid and then clean with soap and water and allow to dry completely. I have a battery leak damaged 286 motherboard a pretty nice one … if it worked that I’d like to get back to some day.
 
seaken said:
This morning I was digging out some stuff for my North Star Advantage that I am restoring and I found a 286 motherboard in a box. Unfortunately the Varta battery was still attached and there is green all over the board. I cut off the battery and have been thinking about how I might try to save this board. I have had some experience with this battery leakage and the spread of the green on some other systems in the past few years. I have successfully brought a couple of other old boards back to life by cleaning with vinegar with a swab and brush and then washing the board. But this board has a lot more green spread than I have seen on the other boards I have cleaned. But the traces on the board do not seem to be eaten away yet.

I was wondering if I should try immersing the board in a vinegar bath for awhile and then run it through the dishwasher.

What is your opinion? Is immersion in vinegar too risky?

Seaken
Click to expand...
Thats pretty much the method I have used for bad battery boards (Macintosh II specifically). Keep in mind the vinegar will severely dull all the solder it comes into contact with. Cleaning with hot soapy water and a cleaning brush before the dishwasher is advisable.
 
@VERAULT , are you saying the immersion is what you have done in the past? Or do you just spot clean with vinegar? I was thinking immersion but I don't know if that is too risky and can lead to worse damage. The posts above don't recommend immersion. I am open to all opinions.

Seaken
 
@seaken Yes I have done full immersion on very bad boards. However I cant say thats what your board needs. IF its just a small amount of damage isolated to a small area you can pour on some vinegar to that area and keep adding a few drops as it dicipates. HAving the vinegar work for a couple hours. Once done, wash with soap and water and then the dishwasher.

And yes for the record I love using the dishwasher for cleaning pcbs. It does an amazing job.
 
I will share some pictures later. It's the most crawl of the green stuff I have seen. But maybe it's not as bad as I think.

Seaken
 
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