Mis-adventures in Retrobright - Does Ozone Work? Full Test! | Part 1
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🕹️ After watching The 8-Bit Guy video called New Adventures in Retrobrighting, I was intrigued by the ozone generator method he showed to retrobrite some keycaps. After discussing with him on the phone, I set up to continue the experiment, and test if it would be viable to deyellow an entire intact machine without disassembling it, using only air. Let me know what you think in the comments!
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Thanks for joining me on this journey. I always want to present my findings honestly, whether they're successful or just... intriguing. I hope this provides something to build on and one day reach the ultimate solution 🤞🕹️
Your friend in retro, Perifractic
Without getting into VERY complex chemistry, you've got a great idea that simply can't work for a number of reasons. David's liquid immersion technique seems to be the best method available as it does the work intended without over-exposing the plastic to the compound changing the surface structure of said plastic. It also effects all other surface areas of the plastic structure equally, greatly reducing the chance of reversion. Ideally, after Davids retro-brighting procedure a light plastic sealant can be applied to protect from future UV induced oxidation. Unfortunately, there is no way to safely retro-bright plastic shells for electronics while in an assembled state because of the oxidation reactions taking place, as you discovered. To do retro-brighting, one has to disassemble. It's an unavoidable process. Laws of physics.
To prevent oxidation TURN THE MACHINE ON whilst inside the bag!!
@@ojbeez5260
No DON'T do that. Very bad advice.
that sound your mac plus was making when you tried to eject the floppy was probably because the plastic gear in the eject mechanism has disintegrated. its a common fault on those old mac drives. if that's all it is then you're in luck as you can get a remake replacement gear online fairly easily
I may be way off here but 8 bit guy only had cloud cover you used a physical cover that looked like it would block out all the light. Maybe try to use a thinner fabric.
Great video!
Cheers guv'nor
9-Bit Guy :)
8-Dollar Guy XD
David, I think your method is the best I've seen yet. Complete submersion and equal distribution of the reactive components around the affected plastic. Certainly more involved, but just gets the job done clean and evenly.
8k-Bit guy lol
"The 9-bit Guy; the extra bit's for parity."
Okay, fair enough. You got a snort out of me.
I used a very high power ozone machine (same kind used to disinfect hotel rooms) when I used to smoke cigars in the bathroom at the top of the house. I'd switch it on and leave it running for about 30-45 minutes after each session. After a month or so, we noticed rust dripping from the bath taps and all the chrome in the room, including the towel rails had rusted! Ozone is very bad for metals as I found out to my detriment. Exposing a PCB to ozone would not do it any good :-)
Also, ozone is highly toxic too, soooo.... well ventilated room recommended.
Lmao.. ofcourse it's bad for metal... it's literally oxgen with an addition free radical oxygen atom. What is rust? Metal oxidization. So just like hydrogen peroxide will make it rust worse than water.
@roygalaasen no.. not well ventilated rooms. You want a Sealed room to sterilize with a ozone generator. You simply dont stay in the room while it's on. Wait an hour before entering the room after.
Gosh, I'll bet you didn't realise that you were opening this can of worms! I hope that there is an industrial chemist out there who watches your channel. Come to think of it, I think the odds are good that there will be. I love that dogs and cats have to smell everything and then sleep on top of it. :-)
Your dog is confused. "He's talking, but he's not talking to me and there are no other humans in the room. I need to investigate to see if everything is OK."
I think narrowing does what is actually causing the yellowing is important. There are old stock unopened items out there, which could provide an perfect comparison unit to test differences at the chemical and molecular level (this would mean destroying some plastic).
But then we need to establish if this has anything at all to do with the plastic. Compare those differences to the difference seen in paper. Anyone with books that are a decade or two old and have been kept on shelves will know how those bright off-white pages of their books have yellowed.
White oil/solent based gloss paint yellows after a time, and it is "understood" to be the alkyd resins causing the issue. We saw a few years back an issue arise with white solvent based gloss yellowing more rapidly (sometimes within weeks of application) after a formula change due to EU regulations forcing manufactures to reduce VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) in solvent paints. This meant reducing the solvent level and replacing it with something else. Anyhow, people have this misguided belief that water based white gloss doesn't yellow, but it does (albeit slower), so again this would be worth comparison also. (especially if the structural change in plastic does not align with the change in paper). Why bother? Because it is very possible the changes going on are all linked, and having multiple materials may make it easier to narrow down what change (s) specifically are causing the yellowing (and which ones are completely unrelated.
At least if we can really nail down what is changing, we can stop shooting in the dark for a way to reverse it. The structural change hypothesis mentioned in the video certainly sounds plausible, but so did the bromide hypothesis. (Plus if someone narrows down exactly what is causing yellowing, imagine the value of a patent to preemptively treat paint, paper, or plastic to permanently prevent yellowing, or at least show the change to levels where it may as well be considered permanent).
+
We’ve retrobrited many things and our procedure has been refined to this:
1 Dismantle the machine completely, if you’re doing keys, remove them from the keyboard.
2 Wash all the part thoroughly. Skipping this part will get patchy results.
3 Apply generous amounts of hydrogen peroxide to the parts you want to treat. We use 12% BBlonde. If you’re doing keys we stick them to cardboard using double sided tape.
4 Wrap the parts in cling film. If you don’t do this the peroxide drys up.
5 Put it out in the sun. Every few hours rotate the parts an mush around the hydrogen peroxide.
6 Bring it in and once again wash all the parts thoroughly.
It takes effort, but it’s the best system we’ve come up with. We live in the UK so we’re limited to summer. We’ve used UV lamps before but they were low power and took forever. One tip I would add is don’t over do it. Things can just look wrong if they’re too retrobrited.
Thanks for the info. But the complexity just grates with me personally. It's just preference. You lost me at sticking the removed keycaps with tape. I'll be the guy who keeps searching for a scientific solution that doesn't require dismantling. I think there are a lot of people out there who ruin or break special old machines in the process.
Just a piece of information, polycarbonate is a UV blocker. So you could put something in a clear polycarbonate case and block the UV. AvE did a video on welding masks where he showed that the UV meter could not see any UV through polycarbonate safety glasses.
You should have a continuous supply of ozone into your bag. O3 has a unstable and will not last long. The bag needs to be vented and the O3 generator left running. If done indoors the vented O3 should be run through an O3 scrubber.
I tried the ozone method last summer in response to 8bitguy's video. For my test piece I tried the plastic flap that covers the ventilation slots on an Osborne 1.
I used an ozone generator that claimed to have a pretty high output, and topped up the plastic bag every hour or two. Several days in the UK sun, and it *might* have lightened slightly, but it was marginal. When the weather turned I also tried putting the bag on a radiator.
So my results were disappointing. Sorry to see yours were too as I'd hoped you might have stumbled across the secret of making it work!
Thanks for sharing. I'm glad it wasn't just me.
thumbs up just for how much the dog evidently loves you
UV might not be able to penetrate even thin, optically transparent plastic. I'd try a UV LED inside the bag. Also, the hose from an ozone generator is probably not anywhere near pure ozone, it converts normal O2 in the air to O3, you're better off putting it inside the bag and running it.
OMG - that moment when puppyfractic walked backwards... :-D Great video again! Very interesting, too.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Seriously, how adorable is PuppyFractic? I made many unmanly noises watching this.
Tell me about it. Any vaguely labrador shaped dog gets an "ahhhh" from me, And that hound appears to be particularly adorable.
She says fank woof very nuch 🐕
The Bromine was blamed for the SNES inconsistencies where some parts would yellow on their own and not others, even without UV. Like, half of an SNES cartridge or most of the top shell but not the part around the cartridge or the controller ports. Those same parts that aren’t yellowed on one yellowed SNES would be yellowed on the next, and vice versa. There was definitely an inconsistent mix of something, whether it was a plastic stabilizer or Bromine or something else. These parts are typically yellowed inside and out. People took this information about the SNES’ strangely inconsistent yellowing and misapplied it to all yellowed plastics.
I am working on a retro-brite project currently (a Tandy 1000EX). I ended up pulling all the keys and putting them in a solution made of approximately 1 cup of SalonCare Volume 40 crime and approximately two quarts of water. I placed the solution and the keys in a clear plastic container with plastic wrap to cover. Today was the second session out in the sun (mainly for heat) and they were out for approximately six hours with occasional stirring. The results are really great with dramatic improvement over the original yellowed state of the keys. While I know you are looking for a no-fuss method, I think the advantage of disassembling is that you get to throughly clean the grit and grime. If you check out my posts on The Vintage Computer Lab Facebook page you can see pics of what I was starting with. I am going to do a Commodore 128 next weekend and I expect similar results with the SalonCare 40 solution.
Your puppy's grown up quite nicely. Still a rather pretty pupper.
I think we now need an Ashley vs. Marissa retro gaming contest!
Oh gosh!
how is your voice so smooth and relaxing? Can you just make a few videos where you read the oxford dictionary ?
Ok coming next week! 👍🕹️
How do you think he hypnotizes the Walmart and Petsmart girls into playing along?
Mmm must have missed the notification for this one. Reading the title I was sure this video was full of hot air but it's actually very cool
I take the occasion to thank you: my old domotic rabbit-thingie (a Nabaztag) just died on me. Nothing serious, some butt splices I installed when I was a teen and I had to replace a motor and the audio section broke riddling the bunny with a couple of shorts, and a couple of plastic struts broke under some rusty screws. I remember what I saw here and I redid everything right this time (why the heck I did elongate some wires splicing over 10 cm of useless cable back then?) and lo and behold! It's working. You gave me back the joy of cleaning with good alchol, solder stuff and gluing stubborn plastics :P
The ozone + heat theory seems to make the most sense, especially when you realize the most effective retrobrighting technique is heating the peroxide on a stove while the plastic is submerged.
Interesting idea, but I didn't have high hopes for it since ozone generators that are safe to operate indoors usually put out concentrations in the *very low* ppm range while 30% peroxide is essentially 300,000 ppm. To give you an idea of just how little consumer generators produce, a 0.04% (400ppm) concentration of ozone will disintegrate latex rubber gloves in an hour... certainly not something you'd want in the house!
Thanks for having a go anyway!
I use for small items, PCB developer, ultraviolet lamp, takes ages, basically over night, had good result with Amstrad CPC 664 blue keys, using peroxide cream & the UV lamp.
Well thank you for taking a hit for the team. I have retrobrighted a few machine of mine using a peroxide solution and they work great. I had been considering this idea but you saved me alot of time by doing this test so my hats of to you :)
I've actually used ozone many times. The proper way to use it is to put the ozone generator in your bag. Those generators usually produce a very low concentration of ozone and the idea is to increase the ozone concentration by constantly having the SAME gas going into the generator. So it is not very important to start without any air in the bag. The ozone you put in the bag is low concentration. Keep the generator inside. The concentration will increase slowly in time.
That's a good idea. But what about the oxidation of electronics? For me the goal here is to retrobright without disassembly... 👍🕹️
Also was the ozone cold or heated/in UV?
Thirdly, if the bag has no air when you start, it doesn't inflate correct? Just minimal air which concentrates to O³?
So theoretically, if the ozone generator is efficient enough, the O2 would eventually all be converted to O3, effectively reaching maximum concentration. What happens at that point? I expect this wouldn't be good for the generator. Lack of O2 may or may not damage the machine, but it also has electronic components of its own that would suffer the effects of more rapid oxidation from O3.
Thanks for your detailed reply. I did see it but unfortunately it accidentally got flagged due to the S word. Anyway, one question remains. When the generator is inside the bag and concentrating the O³, do you heat it at all or do you get results cold?
I think the submersion method that 8 Bit Guy uses is probably the most effective. I’ve also used my toaster oven with a pan of liquid hydrogen peroxide to brighten keys and smaller parts. Believe me, that is by far and away the fastest method. I se my oven for 200 Degrees F, place the keys or parts in which a roughly 60-40 mix of water to hydrogen peroxide inside of a shallow baking tray or like a bread baking pan. I have to leave the door open somewhat because 200 is the lowest the oven can go and it might melt the parts. This likes less then an hour usually.
I’ve never tried it, but I’m guessing a full size oven with one of those turkey baking foil pans could do nearly full size computer parts.
Ozon is not as compatible with ABS plastic as peroxide. Just look it up in your favorite plastic compatibility index. It gets the B grade, same as sodium hypochlorite (bleach), but peroxide has an A rating. So there will be a degradation of the plastics. It of course depends on the strength and exposure time - but I won't switch out the peroxide for it at least.
Busted my back and live in the great corn desert now so the SoCal memories and dogs that don't make me sneeze are my favorite. Love the show!
Perhaps vaporize peroxide (with heat) inside a sealed environment? A cup full of peroxide sitting on a candle warmer inside he bad?
Thank you very much for this video. I guess we are all looking for the “holy grail” to turn back time for our machines. By the way, that’s not only an issue for lovers of old computers, someone told me that museums have the same problems with many artwork done during the last decades, made with plastic materials.
I remember the retrobriting experiment video from 8-Bit Guy. While it requires a disassembly, the best method was hydrogen peroxide in 160f heat. He did his experiment on the stovetop, if you remember. If you can use a sous-vide heater or two, you can keep that target temperature in a water tank big enough to put larger parts in for hours on end. There is a channel called Sous Vide Everything, that cooks using these machines and large tanks for hours (12-24 hours,) on end. 4 hours at 160f would be child's play.
Well the goal here is to retrobright without disassembly
Understood. It is a risk to disassemble older devices, and I can see the goal. I tend to want to go through the entire device myself, looking for bad caps or loose connections/chips, so having it in pieces is something I usually do.
For your goal of doing this on an intact device, a couple of ideas:
A cheap, large aquarium or a wooden box that can have its top sealed with valve to release gas/used ozone might work, or an inverted tank covering the device. Keeping an IR heater with a thermostat in it will keep temperature for you (160f.) A harden container would be more ideal, as it wouldn't melt, and will allow full exposure of the device. A soft plastic bags may block the ozone from the areas of the device it contacts. A small fan on low speed might help as well, keeping the gases flowing and allow for a more equal temperature distribution.
I would also introduce you to a piece of medical equipment called a Sterrad. It uses hydrogen peroxide in plasma form to sterilize delicate medical equipment, especially electronics and endoscopes. The temperature is higher for sterilization (90C,) but you are only trying to accelerate the whitening, so lower temperatures might be OK. I introduce this to you for inspiration for other ideas. Link to how it works here: www.infectioncontroltoday.com/environmental-hygiene/sterilization-gas-plasma-steam-and-washer-decontamination
Best of luck!
I think you can't properly clean an old computer unless you completely disassemble it, so I guess there is no point. I had best results with mixture of water and peroxide 12% in proportion 8 to 1. All in a big flat bin covered with plastic foil. After about 6 hours of polish sun, effect was good enough and whole proces was safe. I needed to rotate the bin every 30 minutes. There was no marbling or whatsoever. I wouldn't recommend using creme, because there is just no way you will be able to spreed it evenly.
I do about the same, but add more peroxide, along with generic Oxiclean(some say it helps, others not, but I can see more of a reaction in my solution), and use a clear plastic bin that has the foam seal, and locks to get it a bit more warm in the tub, and with as hot as my back concrete patio gets in the afternoons I only have to rotate about every hour.
You might try a length of copper pipe instead of the coins; copper is used as a catalyst, in some cases, for organic synthesis. Plastic is an organic, carbon containing, compound.
Btw your sense of humor is great super enjoyable to watch your content
Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️
@@RetroRecipes yes absolutely it's well deserved feedback you do great work! Don't mention it 👍👍
You're a funny guy, more camp than a scout's Jamboree :)
How about soaking the entire machine in liquid Nitrogen?
Nitrogen and Oxygen like to be together, it might suck the oxidation OFF of a board, it might also make the whole thing explode thru thermal stress but either way it's good telly :)
Ultimately, weak nitric acid would clean the whole enchelada. I think I know what an enchelada is and how it differs from a burrito. Or a Quesadilla. Actually no, no idea.
0:12 Puppyfractic wants to retrobright your love....
I love how as soon as he started speaking the dog decided he must be speaking to her (I mean there's no one else there, so she has to be right). But eventually she settles back down because the stupid monkey did not shut up. ;)
Mandatory thumbs up, as usual, though I didn't get the point of this... After 20 minutes of failures we still don't know why it worked with David and not here? Simple: it only works in Texas. :)
Thanks. The point was, I spent 2 weeks on experiments and wanted to share honest results even if it was a failure. Though we did make a few discoveries that I listed at the end on the C64 screen. As I said, I hope these discoveries can be built upon to reach something great... 👍🕹️
I hope Puppyfractic's nose makes a full recovery.
It will. I've done this to my nose too and I'm no puppy! (Although it was an embarrassing week at work!)
Nice video. May I suggest to use the word "hypothesis" in these cases, because it better describes what you have than "theory".
Your channel is incredibly well informed and entertaining to watch. I really appreciate the content you create and share. Thank you for all the work you do!
PLEASE continue this investigation!
I find that the hydrogen peroxide method is terribly hard on prints that might be on the items, such as the Nintendo logo on the NES, the power and eject symbols on a PSone, and there's also the whole streaking thing.
I would LOVE an alternate method that doesn't affect the printing, that's less risky, and more reliable. It doesn't matter much if we have to disassemble before applying, a better method would be great regardless!
I also tried the airbrighting method last summer after seeing the 8-Bit Guy's video. I never got any notable results. If nothing else, it's nice to see someone else validate my failure.
Likewise lol!
when people in the UK say "rubber" for eraser, are they saying the name of the material "it's made of rubber" or what it's used for "you use it to rub out a wrong answer, it's a rubber?"
Interesting idea. Thank you for your hard work on this, I am going to retrobright 12 C64c to give away and this video is helpful to work out the best solution to do this effectively. Keep the great videos coming!
Chris Maybe could ask to Cody from Cody's Lab. he knows a lot of chemistry. Surely he knows of some method
If Cody does it, the process will involve copious amounts of mercury.
Actually the Mercury blue light from florescent lamps has been shown to cause yellowing!
If you put the ozone generator inside the bag you will get a much higher concentration of ozone. As it is now it just pumps out air with a small amount of ozone mixed in.
03:00 It can't be caused so much by the UV light alone as the insides of early Super Famicoms/SNESes tend to have yellowed just as much as the outside.
04:00 Old yellowed SFC/SNES cases often tend to be extremely brittle, to a point where even simply flicking the power switch during a lively gaming session can make the screw posts holding the switch crack/shear off the lower case, so brittle plastic isn't necessarily a result of Retrofighting (or whatever it's called). ;-)
But enough nitpicking, great video (as always)! :D Sooo nice to see Marissa recommending Ashley! And sooo nice to see Ashley, again! :D ^^ (And soooooo glad you were able to escape the security gorillas XD)
LoL When I moved to North America I asked for a rubber in school ... at the time not realizing it was vernacular for condom ;)
We've all been there...
There are sealable large bags/boxes with a heating system that are used to kill bedbugs by heating up the contents you put inside. Might be an option for heat treatment.
Aren't Eisenhower dollars silver? Might be a more reactive metal. (I'm commenting part way through the video)
Another great video! Nice to see this Ozone run done in so many ways. Im really nervous about treating my plastics, cause i really don't want to make anything worse, so it is really informative to watch this :)
Hope all goes well with the Brixtyfour vote :)
As usual, loved your video. I am not too bothered about retrobrighting. Sure, the cases might be yellow, but isn't that the ... uhm.. beauty of aging? I would go the way of spraypainting. Far less bother. Great results.
I love how affectionate Puppyfractic is! Anyway, last summer I had really good results with a big tub of plain pharmacy peroxide and sunlight. The only real difficulty was that as it sat, bubbles formed on the parts and caused them to float, bringing them to the surface and holding various spots out of the peroxide. I'll have to devise a method of keeping the parts either weighed down, or secured to something that's secured to the bottom of the tub.
Reptile brighting lamps?
Generally what heat would do is add speed to a reaction, it should not fundamentally change the chemical reaction beyond that. I think it's interesting about the theories about what causes the yellowing. It would be really interesting to read some literature about degradation of plastics to try to dive deeper. ABS for sure isn't the only plastic that yellows, and further there are different variants of ABS as well which may require different approaches. I do still believe that bromine can be one source of yellowing, but there could me more contributing factors for sure. I think what is interesting is that you can "overbrite" something, making it whiter than what the product was originally, which means that the bleaching process literally is bleaching the dye additives to the plastic as well. I think for that reason ozone may be a interesting path to continue researching, as it may attack the yellowing (certain types of yellowing?) more precisely rather than being the bulldozer that retrobriting can be.
Thanks. Check the description for a link that will take you to many research papers on the topic. I'm pretty convinced it's not bromine. The papers used plastics without any in.
Perifractic's Retro Recipes I’m not sure, I think bromine may still be a culprit in the plastics which contain it, but it by no means tell the whole picture. Plastic polymer degradation is unfortunately pretty unavoidable even when items have been stored out of the harmful rays of the sun. I think to get to the root of the problem we both need to figure out what specific plastic (and perhaps as well to what specific variant of plastic) something is made from and then devise a method for that specific plastic. That’s why I likened retrobriting to a bulldozer, as bleaching doesn’t really attack the underlying issue as you mention in the video. If we could attack it and stop it at the source with a more surgical strike that would be much more ideal. I suspect such a project to be quite massive, and may require quite a few cases to be sacrificed for the greater good. Which for rarer consoles would obviously not be ideal.
you alive?
Ozone will absolutely eat away at rubber and certain plastics. I have a room generator that ruined the pinch roller on my Tascam 38 reel to reel and made a complete mess of it. I do not recommend any ozone induced method for cleaning. It will most likely eat away or break down certain materials in floppy drives.
I love your dedication to this investigation. In my mind you are the expert, but in reality you are just one of us trying to figure it out - good on you, and thanks for sharing!
What if you made some sort of air gun that you pump ozone gas through a nozzle, kinda like a spray gun. You could use a nickel plated heating element to heat the gas in transit to the gun (this might mimic the effect of the coins). At the end of the gun you could use some some short wavelength UV LED's to assist the reaction at the point you are spraying with the ozone. With this you can control where you are doing the actual brightening and only expose the areas you want.
ALPS keycap and switch stems are so thin, and fit so tightly that any brittleness that finds its way in doubles the chances of you getting riggity-rekt the next time you pull those keys off for a clean.
Nothing sadder than when you get to the last key and break it. True story did it yesterday lol.
Most relaxing videos ever PF! You're the tops! Interesting too.
Thank you for your kind words. Means a lot. 👍🕹
Perifractic: "Hey Google, Filming Mode"
Every dumb-ass Google Home in my house: "Sorry, I don't know how to help with that"
I don't know why Google put this video in my recommended viewing list as the closest I get to "Retro gaming" is having an uncontrollable compulsion to play the original Half life all the way through (On a PC) once every couple of years, But I'm glad I watched it now.
"Subscribe" clicked, Bell rung and like given. :)
I've worked in corporate IT hardware support for nearly 20 years, So I've seen more than my quota of nicotine yellow PC's, monitors and printers. It's an interesting issue I'd never really thought about before (Most bright yellow bits of kit I removed from sites went straight into the recycling skip). It's not even a problem I see anymore because all the stuff I support these days is lightly textured black plastic.
This problem's got my mind going though. I'm trying to think of any commercial situations where light coloured plastics needs to be "Restored" without the risk of etching it or making it look patchy. All I can think of at the moment is possibly plastics in classic cars that are being restored, Or maybe something in industrial catering where plastics need staining removed to ensure they look "Hygienic"?
In theory, As long as whatever chemicals they use wouldn't actually affect any of the metals, glass, or circuitry inside, It wouldn't matter if you slathered it all over the outside of a non dismantled unit and left it to do its job.
I'm curious if you've ever cut a badly yellowed plastic item in half to see how far below the surface the yellowing goes? If it's just a thin skin of yellowing then it's very likely to be the UV degrading the polymer, But if it's going maybe over a millimeter into the plastic I could be more likely related to the heat of it spending it's life in direct sunlight. This info could help work out exactly what's chemically going on.
Anyway, I'll be interested to see what you come up with next. :)
actually I'll be dealing with deyellowing car headlamps and cutting a key in half in my next video! You see if Google knows what you like! Thanks for subscribing. 👍🕹️
@@RetroRecipes Jesus, Polishing plastic headlights is a real pain in the bum. I've done it on two cars so far and if I ever need to again I'm going to be checking the price of new headlight units first !!!! :)
Currently, It's believed the only sure fire way you can permanently get rid of the misting is to sand back the surface. Hit it with 400 or 600 grit, Then go through finer and finer wet and dry until you get to 3000 grit. That's the point where you can hit it with polish. You don't need to remove much plastic because the misting is rarely below the surface (It's almost like a thin oxide layer), But ensuring you get rid of ALL the scratches from the previous grade of wet and dry can be REALLY costly in time and elbow grease.
If you haven't got a SLOW random orbital sander and polishing mop it's back breaking work, But once done they look as good as new.
Some people say you need to also spray them with a UV blocking clear coat to stop it happening again, But I couldn't find one that was marked as resistant to UV as well as coping with high temperatures, and was papanoide about the heat from the bulbs* yellowing any lacquer I added and b*ggering up all my hard work.
(* My cars nearly 20 years old, So despite having polycarbonate lenses, it's still got H4 halogen two bar heaters sealed behind them for a light source.)
Well, my video is made with the help of the guy who invented the deyellowing plastic used in modern car headlights, so stay tuned 😉🕹️
I'm really digging the RR images on the TV in the background! Any chance you have a link to download those for wallpaper use? *crosses fingers*.
photos.app.goo.gl/G1FqEpiGUqRvMSmb6
Awesome! Thanks dude.
Have you considered sitting your Mac in direct, cloud-free sunshine? Works great for me. Takes about a week of 4 hour late afternoon sessions but it works as well as gooping it up with h2o2 or whatever and you don't need to take it apart or dissolve the boards. But it has to be absolutely direct sunlight. no bags or clouds. "UV" is not what you want. You want UV-C which is not well reflected or passed through objects like clear plastic.
Lol you might've not realized that the video after this one was my now (in)famous "Lightbrighting" video that started that revolution .... which you are now recommending I try 😂 #inception
Underrated channel !
Sorry about your Mac but I would guess it is not damaged much. I too have been perplexed as to how these plastics yellow in the first place and also how does retrobriting actually fix it? I thought it could be just heat and hydrogen peroxide. But my testing shows it might be the UV. More tests are needed I think. I use a tub with water and the liquid solon care hydrogen peroxide. I set it out in the Arizona sun and have had good success. My TI data cassette was pretty yellowed and I sat it out all day. You could tell that it did not whiten where the sun was not hitting it. The water / peroxide mix was uniformly warm. At 95 degrees.
Try putting the ozone generator inside the bag so that it constantly recirculates the same air. This would theoretically cause a higher concentration of ozone. Also be careful about breathing that stuff if you value your health.
Personally I don't think subjecting electronics to any environment other than the atmosphere is a good idea. So that means dismantling everything, but that's the price of having a nice vintage computer.
As for the ozone thing, I personally don't think it's the answer. I'd be more tempted to go another route. This might sound like a weird option but I would be more tempted to subject the plastic to some hydrogen peroxide vapors than use ozone. Peroxide vapor was used in astronomy to over-sensitize film. All you'd need to do is pour some peroxide in a plastic tray that has a grill on top to prevent the yellowed plastic parts from touching it directly, inflate the bag with air and seal. With everything in the hot sun it should provide an even bleaching action.
So many sacrifices for science!
Yo Starfractic! It's a bummer the ozone didn't work. Maybe some Ozone depleting gases are needed? Perhaps a road trip to Nebraska to bag some cow farts? 😷 Seriously though, I hope some genius chemists step up and help us solve this problem once and for all.
Cheers Racerbrighting X. Cow farts it is!
@@will9357 I am completely aware of that but for most of the retro systems that we deal with there is a common plastic used by many. IE, Macintosh cases are usually made from the same material from certain periods. The same can be said for Commodore.
What does work is a sinkfull of warm water a bit of Dawn and a few sprays of kitchen bleach cleaner. Bought a couple of older Apple keyboards for cheap and broke them down and let em soak, 2+ years later still look great.
Sure, bleach always works, but the goal here is to do it without dismantling the computer
@@RetroRecipes yeah I just see a ton of upper echelon techtubers taking hours or days of saran wrap and peroxide to clean their c64 zxspec etc keys and other smaller parts the same as you did. Just threw my comment out in there and specifically mentioned what I used the bleach on, not that you did something wrong. Cheers
Is it possible that peroxide is penetrating the plastic more effectively and treating the deeper layers where ozone just won't? I still need to build a small container with UV LED's to deal with our crap British weather.
I thought Ashley wasn't working at Wal-mart any more. How long ago did you film this?
that's probably the clip he mentionned he had to film quickly before she left Walmart !
Just that clip, a month ago. I plan videos well in advance luckily.
19:04 sounds like R2D2 having a very long stroke.
Seriously, talk to NileRed on TH-cam. He might have some interesting ideas.
Hi Chris! Thanks a lot for taking so much effort for that project. It's seem at the moment there is no right way to retrobright. I will try to paint my plastic parts next time as you did with the ATARI. Best regards, Doktor64!
Thanks. So far my Atari method is still my favourite 👍🕹️
Considering the energy gap was mentioned (in the science bit), I guess you could say those coins and their time spent in the bag are not so much "Eisenhower" but "Heisen (berg) Hour". Baddum Chish!
This pun was brought to you by the "Don't retrobrite. You're only removing the patina provenance on a relic" league.
Personally I think one shot fix all solutions are impossible (even dangerous) when it comes to retro repairs, we need to do it step by step, this includes retro brighting, after all they have repair and restore old buildings and cars bit by bit, so goes for computers and retro hardware, but that's just my opinion,
I have to agree 100%, because sometimes taking shortcuts only leads to worse results.
I always take my items apart down to the plastics, and use the clear tub with a locking lid, liquid peroxide/generic Oxiclean, and hot water method in bright sun on a 75F + hot day, and it's worked for me on several keyboards, and my childhood NES.
Id' recognise that marble work top anywhere!
Noble effort and a real shame a nice easy solution wasn't found. I would personally lean towards painting as a solution I'd use myself. I think there could be a line of products developed where the best paint types are discovered and the right colours to match different products then just have a line of paints named after the products. Commodore 64 Paint. Sell them in little bottles with cool new labels and there's a little business that I think would do well in the retro community.
Clay Mann you still have to dismantle your computer... that’s not the best
Clay Mann you still have to dismantle your computer... that’s not the best k
Chris I have to say that You, Dave and Clint are my absolute favorite Retro Tech TH-camrs. You all make us feel so at home like I'm hanging out with my good ol' nerd buddies back in high school. Thanks for all you do. However, Best music award will have to go to Retro Recipes (yay! Kids cheer). Are these your original musical works Chris?
Thanks again man! Yes, almost every song you hear is original. They are provided free on certain Supporter tiers (retrorecip.es/support) or most can be streamed on popular sites via retrorecip.es/music 🙏
6:43 No kidding, don't see anything strange in that phrasing, keep safe kids. ;) Well I see getting the exact equipment for this task continues to be tricky, easier to seal and control liquids instead of gasses with store bought goods. Not shocked about the heat factor and the truth is each batch of plastic differs since yellowing differs. Got very tense about the electronics going into the bath too, no easy way I think.
Best explanation I've seen so far, thank you sir.
Fantastic !! And yes, the oxidization would make the rubber roller in the mac eject mechanism go hard :(
GREAT episode by the way, and so happy to see that mac still working :)
Thanks for letting me abuse your gear. That said, it will be restored to working order, or your money back! Oh wait...
Wait, who was that filming at 7:46? Could that be Mrs Perifractic?
Anything is possible...
I used Ozone to Retr0bright my MAC SE. At first nothing happened. But the i used an magic sponge eraser and the machine got whiter. Of course, i cleaned the machine before starting. My theory is that the ozone made the yellow stuff come off more easily.
Well, that was fascinating. I was really hoping you had come across a better explanation and solution for the yellowing. Having said that your new yellowing theory makes sense (as much as I understand the chemistry involved). I'd say don't give up - you are definitely on to something here. Great video.
Thanks mate! I actually think I may have cracked it with a whacky new hypothesis. Stay tuned!
@@RetroRecipes Ok, waiting patiently. #DontBleachYourNose
Texas is also closer to the equator than L.A. therefore the light is different (for lack of a better term, more concentrated especially in a North American winter, hence why we have seasons to begin with. Once we get closer to the summer equinox, the earth is farther away from the sun and the light spreads out more upon the earth- hence why northern states and Canada begin to thaw in spring and heat up in summer. :-D) . Maybe this could have an affect? Dunno.
Great video dude, I always enjoy them!
Put that on.. the dog. That made me laugh :)
If you're making your own Ozone wouldn't that be helping to fill the ozone layer?
Allen .Berge Just need to find a way to move into the ozone layer before it breaks back into normal Oxygen.
you likely had a nylon gear break in the floppy do to heat not the ozone
Could be. Though this method doesn't work without heat, so either way, it's no good. 8 Bit said his tubs reached 130°F. 🥵
Hydroperoxide is not fine. It's bad for the computer case and it's bad for your skin if it's stronger then 5% even if you use glows and eyes protector. I have done retrobrighting without UV in bags. It takes longer time but the result was even better then with UV since the gas and vapor doing the work.
This video was full of a lot of hot air 😉
Awesome video as usual. Pretty interesting how you're using the scientific method to expand the retrobrighting universe with new ideas and experiments.
Certainly trying to do that. I'm glad you liked it, even though it was a failure for my main goal...
you could have used a heater in a small room, you should have had an ozone meter and tested the ozone generator. you could also have sent some emails to people factories making plastic.
There is apparently a product called AirBrite used for polishing aluminum surfaces... (notably, Airstream trailers). There are numerous uses of AirBright for things that remove odors from air or for software to make airlines that use Airbus aircraft able to better do stuff with them. Might I suggest O3Brite (with the 3 subscripted)? Also, the coins "The 8-Bit Guv'nor" used were silver dollars minted in two different metal mixes. Circulated Eisenhower dollars were of the same base metal as quarters of the same (post-1964 era) but collectible Eisenhowers were 40% silver. You might check with him on that. I agree with LordKane773 about "one shot solutions".
Still, this could represent a better alternative to retrobright treatment on a chemical level just for better preservation of the plastics. Is there chemical data available on the pigments used to color ABS? That might be a good line of research.
Thanks. As for the coins I did check with him and he said likely copper nickel not silver.
Another advantage of ozone is it will get rid of smoke residue smells.
I loved the Facebook Marketplace joke, you do see some utter tat on there 😂
it's a shame this didn't really work but I guess that's the nature of experimentation.
At least you helped the Ozone layer heal a bit.