VegHead | 127 Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 I am currently cleaning up a couple of really dirty old consoles, and it got me thinking. One of the worst parts of these tends to be the RF shield. I have seen them rusted, gunked with food or drink, and after a good scrubbing, they come out dull. I have seen some YouTube videos where people have re-electroplated metal components like battery contacts, and I was wondering if it might be useful to the same to cleaned up shields. Does anyone have any insight or experience with this? Is it useful to do? I don't know enough about electronics to know if the electroplating plays a significant role in the shielding aspect of the component, or is the underlying metal doing the bulk of the work? I don't know how much of it is just cosmetic. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a3quit4s | 4,108 Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 Not a scientist and can be 100% wrong but I think it’s just the metal itself that shields the interference and just use some WD40 to get rid of pesky rust. Doing that process on battery contacts makes sense because it’ll carry the electricity more efficiently. Maybe someone else more in the know will reply! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drxandy | 3,235 Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 I feel like it's overkill but if I see rust spots on one I like to try and get rid of em and give a coat of rustoleum to maybe protect(also painted rf shields look cool as heck to me) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RH | 4,924 Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 26 minutes ago, drxandy said: I feel like it's overkill but if I see rust spots on one I like to try and get rid of em and give a coat of rustoleum to maybe protect(also painted rf shields look cool as heck to me) And if you don't like a paint job, they can clear/lacquer coat it instead. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OptOut | 8,889 Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 Yeah, the RF shields don't serve any useful purpose outside of, well shielding RF signals! I guess they also make the systems heavier, which makes them feel more expensive and like a quality product, so that is a plus too! Actually, I think maybe SOME RF shields are used as grounding in some consoles, but I may be totally wrong about that, and even so, having one tarnished like that wouldn't make a difference for that particular function. So, yeah I mean they're not particularly essential components or anything, no! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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