Cleaning silver plated connectors

IPA won’t remove sulphides, the cause of tarnishing, or oxides.

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Silvo which is good on ornamental silver (and intended for that rather than Brassi) isn’t ideal as I believe it leaves a film on the polished silverware to delay re-tarnishing. Something I’ve come across but not used myself is sodium bicarbonate solution in water plus aluminium foil in contact with the silver, that simply removong silphide and oxide without removing silver, and readily washed off after. Might be worth reading up.

Personally I have a strong preference for gold plated contact surfaces, as oxidation is completely avoided, and the microscopically thin layer of gold adds negligible resistance, but if the equipment socket is otherwise finished it is best to have the same metal contact surfaces on the plug where possible

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Spot on.
Same metal mating. :+1:
Ooer.

I think I’ll just rely on periodic unplugging/plugging for the moment. I’m cautious about applying anything at all to plug contact surfaces for fear of leaving deposits. These could then be transferred to the sockets where they will be virtually impossible to remove effectively. Talk about opening a can of worms…..

Abrasive to clean the tarnish
IPA to remove any residue
Perfectly clean.
Sliding in and out :wink:does scrape clean but also redistribute the previous tarnish like dust.
If it’s scraping clean where are the scrapings going. :thinking:

Yes fair point. Presumably being essentially dust they will just fall off with repeated plugging/unplugging.

Dust was a term including dust and scraped previous tarnish unless your aim is perfect to the micrometer lining up with previous scraping.
Falling off on the horizontal means lying flat not dropping out.
Anyway an opinion was asked for and for over 45 years and some of it a TV engineer it served me well. :+1:

This is correct. Silvo is absolutely fine. I used it on my super lumina plugs and it removed the tarnish immediately, then IPA wipe to remove the residue and they are like new. Obviously you will get the usual audiophile rubbish about it affecting SQ but just ignore that.

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Correct. Though often, tarnishing is mistaken for deposits which IPA effectively removes.

For example low reactive metals like gold and rhodium will, over years, appear to also dull and get (for lack of a better word) stain like blotches on them. This happens with reactive metals too but is often attributed to tarnishing when actually it’s another process. IPA removes this and effectively restores the luster without residue.

As it’s also a good primer for cleaning contaminants before some other stage I use it first. Nickel is an example of a low reactive metal that attracts deposits that coat it in a dark grey that looks almost indistinguishable from oxidized silver. IPA strips that right off.

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Wise decision. :+1:

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