[Coco] MPIs & Cartridges With Solder/Tin Contacts Can Now Be fixed With A Gold Contact Plug Upgrade!

[Al Hartman]

I beg to differ. If you read his columns over time, and see how he has 
solved tech problems for himself and friend, and that his son Alex I a 
computer professional...

I take his advice VERY seriously. He helped me out of a rough spot a few 
years ago.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/

I mis-remembered the name, it's called Stabilant 22a. Here's a quote from a 
review from PC Magazine.

"A small company named D.W. Electrochemicals (905-508-7500) fax 
(905-508-7502) has developed a remarkable liquid called Stabilant 22 that 
allows even dirty contacts to perform properly. Stabilant 22 is an organic 
compound that allows electricity to flow where it should, not where it 
shouldn't. For instance, within your computer, Stabilant enables signals to 
travel from one contact surface to another, but not between adjacent pins on 
a chip.

Stabilant is a great conductor.

How does Stabilant pull off this trick? The explanation's a bit technical 
but for the hard-core techies and terminally curious, here goes:

Normally, Stabilant is an insulator. But in the presence of a large 
electric-field-gradient, it becomes an excellent conductor. An electric 
field gradient is the "slope" of an electric field. It indicates to what 
degree voltage change over distance (voltage difference between two 
surfaces, divided by the distance between surfaces). Within your computer, 
distance between a pin and a socket is so small that the gradient very large 
(on the order of thousands of volts per inch), causing the liquid to become 
a conductor. But the distance between adjacent contacts is great enough to 
keep the gradient low (on the order of tens volts per inch)-well below the 
level Stabilant needs to make t transition from insulator to conductor.

The diluted form of Stabilant 22, called Stabilant 22A, is best for most 
computer uses. Apply a drop to the pins of a chip while t is still in its 
socket, and the liquid will penetrate the contacts. 0 an eyedropper or swab 
to apply Stabilant to contacts inside edge card sockets, cables, and drive 
power and cable connectors. You need only a single drop, just enough to 
cover the contact surfaces to a depth of 1 or 2 mills, (about 4 to 8 
hundredths of an inch)."

http://stabilant.com/revrw15h.htm

Amazon.com carries it.

- Al -



-----Original Message----- 
From: billg999 at cs.uofs.edu

> You can also apply a bit of Stabilant 50 to the edge connector. It will
> keep
> the fingers from oxidizing over time. Jerry Pournelle, who wrote for Byte
> Magazine swears by it.

He used to write SciFi and often talked in his columns about the people
who came over to actually install or fix any of the computers he used
to write his books. (Like Dr. Godbout!!  Anybody remember him?)  Having
read Byte (and his column) for many years, I never considered him to be
tech savvy.

bill