Hi everyone,
I have a few CPS2 games with varying degrees of dirtiness, nicotine, & coffee satins. I was wondering if anyone knows the safest way to clean shells without harming the shell.
Also, the safest way to clean the PCB? is it still alcohol and a cotton swab? I've seen some folks saying you should use brass cleaner for the jamma edge but that seems iffy.
Warm soapy water on the shells. Simple Green if needed.
Isopropyl and a cotton bud on the JAMMA Edge.
If the PCB is working, there’s no need to clean. Keeping in line with the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality is the best unless you have the skills to fix it if it does breaks.
100% agree with this. The number of times that I've done a 10 minute job, thought "oh I'll just tidy that up while I'm here" and turned it into a 10 hour job...
+1 for warm soapy water on the shells - many of the marks are inside the plastic and will never scrub out, scrubbing too hard will remove the textured finish from the shells. If you cut a piece of plastic to match the size of the sticker(s), and tape it down super well with waterproof tape it can really help protect the sticker.
Things I want to try but have not yet
1) Retrobright with peroxide to remove all the stains - this will destroy the stickers for sure
2) boiling the plastic to bring it back to life (the vintage car dudes are doing a bit of this) - would also destroy the stickers
Some great games in that stack! Capcom Vampire had some of the best art, most interesting music, and most fun gameplay - a massive investment for three games - ripe for a re-release!
Attached pics below. also a word of caution: attempt at your own risk!
I do this shell cleaning (not pcb) with every new cps2 board arrival once. I put 2~3 paper towel layers on both the game and serial label and tape both over thoroughly. But make sure the paper towel covers both covers enough so no tape sticks to them. Doing this right the labels won't get wet and even when water manages to get trough it will get soaked up by the paper towel layers. Also using cheap duct tape actually does wonders. It sticks and isolates against water enough and removal is quite easy since the whole cleaning only takes minutes. Give the case a good scrub depending on the dirt. I usually do one or two runs with neutral dish soap without any fancy smell. Doing so does not leave any resedue and random flavored smells unlike some soaps would do. I do the first run with just a (obviously unused) paint brush and a second one with a bit rougher brush or sponge if needed. Really depents on the accumulated dirt. I do both runs with just a little water mostly avoiding the taped area and finish everything off with a quick but thorough water rinse. its good to have a good preassure on the water stream to get everything off quickly. After that i dry the taped area first with a towel and peel the tape off to check the labels. I clean the taped over area with a paper towel and IPA. The label itself will not get damaged doing this but you need to be careful as long as the towel is not soaked with IPA but just a little.
Did this with about 20+ shells now. worked for me.
