Oric cleaning :)

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This includes generic Oric talkings and things that are totaly unrelated but want to share with people here :)
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Chema
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Oric cleaning :)

Post by Chema »

Today I was getting a little bored and decided to do something I have not done since... 1984 or so, that means never: Cleaning my Oric.

The case and, most of all, the keys were full of dust and dirt. So I just opened the case, unmounted everything and removed the keycaps. This is quite an easy process, so highly recommended. You can see they keys are really dusty:
Disassembled Oric
Disassembled Oric
disassembled.jpg (681.23 KiB) Viewed 6716 times
I used a rag with soap and water for the case and some window cleaner and a rag to clean every keycap. Then I placed them back. The board was cleaned with a soft brush.
Keyboard clean!
Keyboard clean!
clean.jpg (1.23 MiB) Viewed 6716 times
I used a soft brush too for cleaning the motherboard a bit, mostly removing dust. It was not as dirty as I expected, probably because it was extracted a couple of years back to replace the LM sound amplifier chip.

And the final result, clean as new:
There and back again
There and back again
Final1.jpg (645.32 KiB) Viewed 6716 times
Yeah, the FUNC and Arrow keys are misplaced, I know :lol: not a real hassle. It is quite easy to remove and place the keycaps back. You just need to pull the key straight up for the former (don't use a screwdriver, just your fingers or an extractor), and align the key carefully and press gently for the latter.

I spent some time playing a bit to test everything was Ok. In fact I noticed that the ']' key fails from time to time... the rest work flawlessly as usual.
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HigashiJun
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by HigashiJun »

Nice and clean !

For those interested, here's a good product able to bring back nice tones to discolored plastic cases and keys:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Owatrol-Polytr ... 954P3C6MSG

A bit pricey, but really worth it...

Cheers.
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Steve M
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by Steve M »

I've not had too much trouble with the plastic on Atmoses getting discoloured. It's seems quite sturdy stuff. I have in the past washed the key tops. A little WD40 usually does a good job of removing stickers etc and can brighten up the surface.

Oric-1s are a bit different and the case can become dicoloured, turning a bit yellow. I've not found a solution to that but there are people that rennovate old PCs and Atari STs to bring back the original colour.
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HigashiJun
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by HigashiJun »

My last Atmos was quite discoloured (case bottom and red keys), and this magic spray made everything back to its original glory.

You can give the retrobright method a try if you want to make yellowed plastics white again, but this process is not everlasting and you'll have to repeat it after 2-3 years...
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Vyper68
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by Vyper68 »

I agree with Steve, all my Atmos’s have not needed retR0brite(tm) :D They do normally turn up with scuffs on the gloss black part of the top case and maybe some marks on the red bottom case that clean off.My main problem has been where the little leaf contacts inside the keyswitches have over repeated use started the make intermittent contact and need some gentle persuasion to move back into regular contact again.
Oric-1’s do suffer from yellowing on the grey plastic but I have yet to see one as bad as we see on Atari XE and ST machines I think that is down to the manufacture of the plastic back then and where it was sourced. As a side note I haven’t seen any really badly yellowed Pravetz’s for sale either.
But if you do have a discoloured red lower case I’m not sure it would work on a red plastic, it is designed with cream/grey cases in mind. I was given a retR0brited top case for a 130XE and the results were patchy.
If it were me I would give it a good clean and the leave it at that, the discolouration is part of that particular computers story :)
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Steve M
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by Steve M »

I think you'd have to leave it out in the sun for a while to get the red to discolour.
I have one or two Atmos bottoms, so I'd just replace it, if it was that bad.

I do have one Oric-1 that is quite discoloured. It was my first 48K one and came like that. I swapped the case for a nice one - but I do miss the Garfield transfer that I put on it. It had Garfield with a paint roller in his hand which was blue, so it looked like he'd just painted the two stripes.
Last edited by Steve M on Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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HigashiJun
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by HigashiJun »

Yes, I think this Atmos was placed somewhere in direct sunlight for a long period...

Never had Oric-1s, but they always seem very clean and not yellowed at all on auction sites.
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by Geoson »

I recently resurrected both an Oric-1 and an Atmos. Both had non responsive keys.
The Oric is straightforward to clean. Just disassemble and clean the keyboard membrane, making sure no dust or foreign particles (light colored cat fur!) are present, carefully realign everything and then reassemble.
The Atmos is a bit trickier. Short of desoldering the black carrier frame for the keys, one is limited to blowing air over the exposed spring mechanisms after the key caps are removed. Even after that, I found a few non responsive keys. After careful examination, I decided to resolder those. Everything now works.
It is 30 years since these things were made. It is quite possible many of these joints are beginning to fail. If nothing else works, this is what I suggest.
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mikeb
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by mikeb »

Geoson wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:45 pm clean the keyboard membrane
Unless it's been used by someone playing games too long, in which case the cursor keys may have collapsed (true: The rubber cups fatigued on original Oric keyboard here from this!)
Geoson wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:45 pm one is limited to blowing air over the exposed spring mechanisms after the key caps are removed. Even after that, I found a few non responsive keys. After careful examination, I decided to resolder those. Everything now works.
The soldered joints on the keys are a failure point, all the physical pounding on the keys bears down on them and can stress/pop the joints somewhat. To clean them better, you could actually dunk the whole keyboard in Isopropanol and then operate the keys as much as possible while wet. This shouldn't be injurious to the plastic (can't say the same for all official "switch contact cleaners", which can eat/melt plastic!), and is quite effective at getting any grease/surface rubbish/coronavirus off.
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by Godzil »

HigashiJun wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 12:34 am My last Atmos was quite discoloured (case bottom and red keys), and this magic spray made everything back to its original glory.

You can give the retrobright method a try if you want to make yellowed plastics white again, but this process is not everlasting and you'll have to repeat it after 2-3 years...
All ABS plastic, whatever the colour can yellow, it is just more difficult to see, unless you have area that the colour haven't (yet) changed.

I have a blue/purple GameCube. It is not obvious at first until you have other part of the original colour to put next to it. I've seen black devices where other than certains lighting you don't see the yellowing, if you illuminate it in the right way you can see that the black is not even and it has yellowed

As long as there is bromine in the ABS plastic, it will find a way to yellow...
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HigashiJun
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by HigashiJun »

Godzil wrote: Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:10 am
HigashiJun wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 12:34 am My last Atmos was quite discoloured (case bottom and red keys), and this magic spray made everything back to its original glory.

You can give the retrobright method a try if you want to make yellowed plastics white again, but this process is not everlasting and you'll have to repeat it after 2-3 years...
All ABS plastic, whatever the colour can yellow, it is just more difficult to see, unless you have area that the colour haven't (yet) changed.

I have a blue/purple GameCube. It is not obvious at first until you have other part of the original colour to put next to it. I've seen black devices where other than certains lighting you don't see the yellowing, if you illuminate it in the right way you can see that the black is not even and it has yellowed

As long as there is bromine in the ABS plastic, it will find a way to yellow...
Yes, but I think this yellowing is much more resulting in a fading on coloured plastics.
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by Godzil »

Hmmm

Ok didn't thought as "discolouration" as in loosing colour, misread there.

Though if the plastic really get discoloured (the pigment loose their colour) the plastic will whiten, don't really see what could be done against that, there is no magic spray/process that could give its original colour??

Retrobright is a clear process as the original colour is still there, it's just that something start to add it's own colour to the plastique. Weird.

I wonder if it is juste adding some "glossy" to it more than anything?
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HigashiJun
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Re: Oric cleaning :)

Post by HigashiJun »

Concerning colour fading, I had good results with the product mentioned in my earlier post:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Owatrol-Polytr ... 954P3C6MSG

I do not know whether they will be permanent or not, as that Atmos was sold... :?:
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