I Was Given A Bag Of Melting Phones | Fixing Melting Rubber
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- -------------------------------------Socials------------------------------------
Website: www.hughjeffre...
Store: www.hughjeffre...
Instagram: / hughjeffreys
--------------------------------------Links--------------------------------------
Get parts, tools and repair guides at iFixit:
Shop US: iFixit.com/hug...
Shop AU: ifix.gd/hughje...
Tools I Use: www.hughjeffre...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(DISCLAIMER: This description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, l will receive a small commission.)
_"The solution - alcohol, and a lot of it."_
You're absolutely right. Once you drink a bottle or two of whiskey - you don't care about how sticky your phone is anymore.
LMAO Someone had to say it
E
No. Vodka. Only vodka. And Finnish one.
I don’t drink and I found this funny.
I was gonna say a couple drinks but my man here says a bottle or two.!
Melting rubber is the single grossest thing I've gone through with my eletronics devices, I can't tell you how many times I had to strip and scrap perfectly functional products just because it was easier to do so
I had a game where I would stick it to the roof of my repair shop and see how long it would stay
yep had to get rid of a good stereo that had the rubber coating melting and same with an android tv box no matter how much i cleaned them no matter what i used they where still really sticky
who ever came up with rubber coated plastic should be in jail
I've even scrapped things like hair dryers or vacuums because of it.
Dear Hugh Janus,
Please don't drink the alcohol.
Thank you.
Wtf just use Oven cleaner.
I found a better way to clean it! It's not rubber, and this problem isn't limited to older devices. This coating is called Soft-Touch, and for the first year or a few (depending on the quality) it is very pleasant to the touch, but then gradually it becomes more and more sticky, and eventually turns into this. That's why everything is fine on HTC devices - it's rubber there. The Soft-Touch coating is washed off very easily: just immerse the case without electronics (!!!) in 647 solvent (it is used to dissolve paints and varnishes, just what you need). But keep in mind, some types of plastics after that become covered with a white coating (for example, some cases from Sony, while others are fine), but with most everything is fine. In my free time, I experiment with this coating and put it together to fix it. This one and painting with clear nail polish is already successful (it will take less time than your method), and I plan to try to cover it with different spray varnishes in cans (for example, now I plan to try acrylic on one mouse)
Thank you, I also had problems with this coating and figured there's some solvent for it but didn't know which one
647 can dissolve some types of plastic, so first you should try it on small part of your device. I recommend first trying kerosene, it's weaker solvent, safer for plastic and usually works just fine.
Rubber does break down, vulcanised rubber will start to reverse process and become the sticky goo. My handle bar grips did and I had to sand them down to remove it
I was thinking of using sandpaper to make the surface matt instead of painting it
@@patrickcardon1643 I just tried this alcohol method on the back cover of my xperia mini, it's a tedious process but I noticed something, I kept applying alcohol, going at it with an old credit card and then washing off the gunk in water, drying off with a rag and repeating. Once I figured it's enough for a first session I noticed that after sitting for a bit some parts of the coating started peeling off like a film, revealing glossy smooth plastic underneath, I wonder if immersing into alcohol and then water will make water intrude under the partially disolved covering allowing it to just peel off... I'll definitely try this out.
I can agree that old rubber is probably the worst thing to tuch and handle. A phone is bad enough, but if you have an older VW, they have the same problem with their "soft tuch" material as yet again is just a rubber coating over plastic and thru time it just gets all sticky and collects dirt on the surface
Yeah it's sad so many things use that soft touch rubber coating in the 00's, but there are thankfully companies that specialize in removing that stuff, but it's not cheap.
Having said that as someone who does electronics salvage as a hobby, and has come across so much of that soft touch rubber goo on things over the years, I want to find the guy who came up with the stuff, and give them a good bashing with a baseball bat for all my headaches, and the needless the e-waste they have created!!
Not sure they even tested the product by aging it back then. Doubt they had any evil intent. The morons doing it on current day objects though are evil as they probably use it to force you to replace the object after a while
yep, always remembered my mothers beetle, the soft touch stuff would just constantly flake off the dash, and it wasent even that old
Dankpods needs to see this
@dankpods
The video's thumbnail was designed like dankpods
Yes send him email
@@kutiz7273 also at 0:32 is like the dankpods nugget lucky dip reference
Mrmobile covered this during “When Phones Were Fun” series. Basically, rubber reversion/devulcanization is a problem with old phones that use rubber coating as part of their body.
They sure made the phone feel comfortable to hold while new but it becomes gross when the rubber degrades.
It really did. I remember my Sony Ericsson Z530i had that soft touch (the name of the rubberized coat) on it's front and back covers (which funny enough, you could replace the shell parts on a flip phone), same with my longest living phone yet, an Xperia L. It grips well, no fingerprints unless you've been munching at chips with that hand, and really feels great, until it starts to melt away. The Z530i just got a rinse and rub under the tap (since you could remove those covers without tools), the Xperia L went through 3 back shells.
I would take a wild guess at the problem being similar to PVC cables from old devices melting into the cases when left on top of them for years. It looks horrible, like the cable was near catching fire on top of it, but nope it just stayed there for years. What happens in that case is that the plasticizers that make the cable pliable migrate from it towards the harder case, softening it.
A different effect happens with too old 3D printing filament, where it becomes brittle.
I found a better way to clean it! It's not rubber, and this problem isn't limited to older devices. This coating is called Soft-Touch, and for the first year or a few (depending on the quality) it is very pleasant to the touch, but then gradually it becomes more and more sticky, and eventually turns into this. That's why everything is fine on HTC devices - it's rubber there. The Soft-Touch coating is washed off very easily: just immerse the case without electronics (!!!) in 647 solvent (it is used to dissolve paints and varnishes, just what you need). But keep in mind, some types of plastics after that become covered with a white coating (for example, some cases from Sony, while others are fine), but with most everything is fine. In my free time, I experiment with this coating and put it together to fix it. This one and painting with clear nail polish is already successful (it will take less time than your method), and I plan to try to cover it with different spray varnishes in cans (for example, now I plan to try acrylic on one mouse)
I saw that video a few months back. Those phones were also pretty durable because of how protective the rubber was. I kinda miss those phones when compared to the metal slabs we have today but the stickiness over time was horrible.
That soft coating was on Totes umbrellas I bought in the USA about a decade ago and went the same way. I removed it with a Chux cloth and methylated sprits, that worked fine. A similar coating was used in the early 90s on the interiors of some Italian cars, Ferraris in particular. Control buttons, dash components and consoles. Specialists charge a small fortune to “restore” them. Probably lots of scrubbing with metho and a chuckle when they write the invoice.
At the time they put this coating everywhere) I had it on my umbrella too. I'm glad that we don't see it anymore, but who knows which "bright ideas" we might find in future)
@@DDD893 I've seen it on new umbrellas.
I can confirm these are sticking to everything I put them near! Thanks Hugh, you are very generous.
If you can, could you maybe send one too the nice guy Wade over at Dankpods. He loves goofy old nugget phones. Cheers!
Do you have any experience with those HTC devices? If you ever get rid of them I’d love to purchase them from you.
@@Dwall44 I'm planning an HTC video to follow my next Nokia video. Hopefully it's a good one.
@@JanusCycle Any idea on when the video will be released?
hey Janus, I love your videos !!! 🙋♂🙋♂🙋♂
I think the melting of the rubber is caused by an softening agent mixed into it. The amount of things usings those back in the early to mid 2000s is astounding. I have found similar sticky residue on all things from snockeling gear to USB-Sticks. Fortunatly coating using this softener isn't used commonly anymore.
It was used in many car interiors too. BMW and Jaguard IIRC used it a lot at the time.
You're likely quite correct, though there's also the additional factors of the oils and sweat on your skin also reacting with the rubber over time.
Any which way you look at it and almost no matter the cause, they shouldn't use rubber like that in the first place.
the bmw e46 has this problem and it’s really bad
That and that stupid painted silver plastic they used on cheap stuff! Guys you made excellent plastic in the 80s and 90s why bother to change it to save 1 or 2 p on each device!
4:48 that glowing orange indicator light is cool, it blends in with the outer shell, almost like current under-display camera technology but for lights !
It’s like a time machine seeing all these phones from back then getting fixed. Well done once again Hugh!
As a business owner, cleaning rubber reverted devices are a pain but it's insanely satisfying. I once got a lot of older work phones for dirt cheap to repair and resell. This one Motorola ic502 on Nextel (bought by Sprint, dissolved in 2013) had rubber so old it became pretty much water. It was a lot easier than the Nokias and Samsungs that I needed to clean, but it was a bit too easy for me.
This sort of thing is why I'm glad that rubber / soft touch coating trend died out. Strangely, a similar coating common on ThinkPads rarely ever gets this bad, maybe it uses a different material.
I loved my Treo 680 and 750, the keyboard was easy to use. I used the Palm OS and interface instead of Windows. I had a similar issue with melting rubber on an old Lenovo external hard drive and used pro level fingernail polish to remove it. Also, if I remember correctly you could unscrew the end of the pen (the part that broke off) and there was a built-in reset pin.
This also happens to the analogue sticks on PS3 controllers. I have even encountered it on ink cartridges for those fancy pens. It's really difficult to get the rubber off your fingers after touching it. Hate that stuff.
As a phone collector, yeah rubber coating can be annoying and nasty at the same time, this is why I clean my phones often when I get them or daily clean them
I've had this issue with a Powerbank of mine.
Fixed the issue by using Sodium Bicarbonate and water, mixing them into a paste. Worked like a charm!
I use Bilt Hamber Surfex-HD, 5% mix. Tried it as a last resort before binning the item and found it works really well. It can take several attempts but the yucky stuff is easily scrapped off with the top of your finger nail, thus not damaging the surface. It has now saved several good usable items, including old phones, from going in the bin for being so gross to touch. I am in the UK and know Bilt Hamber is available in the US, not sure 'down there' :)
We all already know this is gonna be a banger video. Keep up the good work hugh!!
I think there are 3 options re-using old electronic devices:
1.) repair if the same but new device would be still usable, e. g.: compatibility to standards like network,
2.) modify/upgrade add needed features if the repaired device could not be used, e. g.: incompatibility with todays standard like network (replace old parts with new parts, re-use replaced working parts for other projects),
3.) device crunching and raw material extracting.
That HTC phone (first one) is actually the "HTC Touch" or "P3450". Sometimes "Elf" or "Vogue".
Can use a standard mini USB to charge if the output is exact.
It's going back to its origin, melting and seeping back into the ground. A million years from now someone will be pumping it back up and remarking that they hit a sweet pocket of Nokia rubberized phones.
You can disassemble the shell and leave it overnight on a strong solvent like paint remover.
Everything should easily come out after that.
Another thing that I never seen anyone doing is refurbishing the battery.
Most phone batteries have a hidden charging board inside them. You can remove that board and solder it on a new generic battery of similar or smaller physical size that operates on the same voltage range (Usually 3.7v~4.35v).
Make a custom 3D printed case or be creative with casting materials like resin and voila! You have a brand new battery.
You can even have a battery with more capacity than the original one depending on how much battery technology has improved when compared with the phone age.
I have experienced this only once, as I never had a phone made with rubber, I dealt with this with the Gizmondo, an incredibly obscure handheld console from the early 2000s. It is definitely not a pleasant experience, it's really disgusting.
0:45 I have a HTC Touch Dual like this, and they charge using Mini USB cable. The connector on the phone is a little different but in fact is Mini USB
HTC used a custom "extUSB" connector based on miniUSB (mini, not micro). Regular miniUSB cables will work just fine for charging. The charger that came with the phone was regular miniUSB too. Full ExtUSB was used for headsets.
This same rubberized stuff is applied to some hand tools as well, and they too become sticky and gross over time. As you stated - alcohol, and lots of it. Goo gone and WD-40 work fairly well too.
I didn't have a Treo, but one of my first phones was a Palm Centro. The phone radio is separate from the actual power of the device because (unless you really need it powered fully off in which case you can just remove the battery) you have the ability to use it as a PDA without the radios on. Since they were designed for businesses, people still wanted access to calendars and cached emails if they had to disable the phone on a plane. Modern airplane modes are much more convenient
Hugh jeffery comes with the most unique videos you can ever find across CZcams
YOOOOOOO THE 750!!! That was my first cellphone way back in 2011 and yeah same sticky situation, at the end I use rubbing alcohol and remove all the rubber coating
Melting rubber happens a lot in India for older devices, especially in the hot parts of the country. My mom's solution for that was to take off the battery and wipe it with a cloth dipped in kerosene and then drying it outside for hours in sun. Crude, but worked once on an old Motorola phone.
I just did this to an old CRT I got from 1989. It was timely, but kinda fun to do
I know this is a bit late of a comment, but I found through a Google search that baking soda with a little bit of water to make a sort of dry paste worked. Although I haven't performed this fix on an electronic device, it did save a coat where the rubberized plastic buttons were melting and becoming sticky. No need to scrape the goo off.
I have this issue with other electronics as well. Especially with my JuceBox video player from 2004. Hard to use that way. Same with removing it from its carrying case.
I had an HTC neon in 2010. Seeing him triggered amazing memories, thanks!
A treo 755p was my first smart phone and honestly Palm despite making every wrong decision was the real mvp
Dropping this here instead of inside a reply: I would take a wild guess at the problem being similar to PVC cables from old devices melting into the cases when left on top of them for years. It looks horrible, like the cable was near catching fire on top of it, but nope it just stayed there for years. What happens in that case is that the plasticizers that make the cable pliable migrate from it towards the harder case, softening it.
A different effect happens with too old 3D printing filament, where it becomes brittle.
State of the art at one time. Crazy how far things have come.
WOW! I love old phone content. Enjoyed that Samsung SGH-i600. :)
I had a few rubberized pens. I kept one in the mailbox, as I get from time to time mail addressed to other people, and I find it handy to be able to write "not known, please return to sender" on the spot, so that I can put it in the post on my way to the office.
Well, that's the only pen that didn't melt. So temperatures above 17C must be a factor.
BTW I use alcohol and cotton pads, they don't leave marks, but it takes longer to get the goo out of the way.
I work on Dell Latitude laptops and I’m so glad Dell reduced the amount of rubber used in newer models
Transitioning from plastic/rubber to polycarbonate shell/ aluminium is still the best thing!
Beware of isopropyl alcohol when cleaning old phones with keypads. On my Nokia, the keys fell off because the alcohol dissolved the plastic/rubber film that holds the buttons
who is dumb enough to make something that gets ruined by cleaning it??
Hugh Jeffrey: hand on straight from the bag
DankPods: gloves
Also an issue on older car switch gear. The classic Ferrari sticky button problem. There are companies that specialise in refinishing them.
Those windows 2006 SE phones couldn't be switched of.
I used a lot of PPCs and loved them
This same phenomenon happens in some Mazda models from the mid 00s with their dashboards turning to gooo
Ah, remind me of the olden days. I used to use Treo 650 and Centro. I didn't like Windows mobiles at that time as they are not as good as Palm OS. The battery life in Treo650 was amazing, it could stay on for a week. These phones are actually PDA phones. The power button is actually to switch on the cellular mode.
Long before Apple used a physical switch to mute the phone, Palm already used it. Palm also used a SIM tray where you can swap your SIM without turning off your phones. You can easily disassemble the phones to clean it. I did it several times. This phone is just like a lego.
Plastic has sometime some additives to make it soft touch. With time those additives may separate from the plastic itself, moving to the surface and thus making the surface of the object sticky. It happens to anything really: phones, phone case, or glasses frames.
It's the additives in the vinyl and rubber decomposing over time. Not limited to these phones. many plastics are going sticky or just plain turning to dust. I have a GM steering wheel from the 70's that has gotten sticky and cleaning it doesn't last long. My mom had a electric hair clipper set from the 1960's whose plastic housing totally warped and turned to dust. If you look at some electrical cords, you see greenish goo coming out around the prongs or the wires themselves. Stuff smells bad and the cord has to be replaced before it compromises the electronics. There are a lot of materials that aren't holding up with time. No-one thought a lot of the stuff would still be around 30-40+ years. You can't really stop the chemical decomposition.
I case of HTC despite funky charging port, the miniUSB plug fits Perfectly
That Treo Pro was one of my favorite phones ever. Trep 800w was might favorite Windows phone of all time. I was a big Treo guy.
“A fellow aussie youtuber” for a moment i expected DankPods lol
If you are able to take those sticky pieces off the phones, then simply put them into dishwasher and it will remove that sticky coating. I have already cleaned this way many laptops, mobile phones and even car interior parts with great success and it is really effortless.
I loved that model Samsung, I had a custom android rom on mine before I passed it onto a family member.
That Samsung might be a Samsung BlackJack. I remember the wheel was indeed used for scroll and volume second.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_BlackJack
That was my first thought as well
i hhad the same issue with my k800i sony and my p1i sony that i got from ebay were the plastic rubber was all melted.
i managed to remove the sticky rubber via using a small pan and iPA with the parts fully dunked in for 30mins or longer and it came off really well.
i also tried the scraping method but i found putting the parts in full cup of iPA worked very well.
Power on upon battery insertion may likely encourage users to remove the battery before any long term storage. That itself can save many devices from battery expansion.
It’s the wicked phone of the west....
“I’m MELTING”.....🤣
Oh god this makes me think back to the reel to reel machine I fixed the belts melted and got into the mechanism that actually controlled things like play stop and fast forward and I had to disassemble all of the metal levers and clean each one thoroughly and it took days. I think I still have some tools stained with the goop I will never escape it
Pretty sure that Samsung is what we got in the US as the "BlackJack". It was Samsung made Windows Mobile-based competitor for the super-popular Blackberry at the time. It was a great device, I had one and really enjoyed it.
I dug out my old Palm phone out of storage and I've come to the conclusion. The plastic used to make the phone is trying to turn back into oil.
Cameras are also prone to this melting rubber coating situation; I used the same method of using methylated spirits to remove the coatings altogether. Many older style cameras have single-curve body contours which allowed flat sheets of materials to be stuck on for extra grip (even though some camera makers used equally perishable materials), but the rubber coating technique encouraged camera makers to go nuts with compound curves, which also means the resultant shiny smooth surfaces cannot be covered with suitable materials again.
This would be Dankpods' worst nightmare.
I loved my Treo 755p. Played a pretty decent game of Doom and had NES and GameBoy emulators on it. That's still pretty much all I I want out of my phone now.
Those super dim screens remind me of how far modern smartphone displays have come, back then 65K LCDs look vastly superior to the 4096 color panels of the early 2000s, such as the Nokia 7650 and the Sony Ericsson P800.
You can use soda powder and water to remove the sticky plastic as well
Its called rubber reversion, Micheal fisher talks about this a lot in his “when phones were fun” series.
Ooh! A nugget lucky dip! I'm glad nothing new is made out of rubber.
That proprietary HTC connector is EXT-USB they also accept a mini USB. That’s how I charged multiple HTC windows mobile phones back in the day.
"I'm a CZcamsr with more subscribers than you" heckler Hugh Jeffreys, 2022, at a Luke Kidgell comedy show.
You can also use flour to remove the rubberized coating.
I’ve had mice go sticky on me too. Isopropyl alcohol did clean it with lots of rubbing.
As to the CAUSE of the butyl rubber breakdown, my theory is: airborne solvents. Insecticide in particular.
IPA and baby wipes seem to do it, you can also use spray on Oven cleaner.
It’s the hand oils and grease etc that break it down over time plus they’ve probably had dirt left on them since they were last used and it’s reacted with the rubber coating
ouuh those htcs bring back memories of my father 🥺🥺, i would love to have one of them now but it's impossible right now 😭
Used to do the same on the older over ear headphones, the rubber head band over time would get all sticky and grungy..
That unknown Samsung was called “Blackjack” in the states. It was their take on a BlackBerry 8700
I had to do this with my Galaxy S5, so time consuming!! Several other early 00's phones and devices I have and my parents have (they still try and use them, I should clean those up for them) has the goo on it!
There are different kinds of soft touch coatings. Some are going to be gross and sticky, while other are ok after many years. For example I have 2 Wacom graphics tablets from the same era. Intuos5 holds its soft touch pretty good, while Cintiq Companion Hybrid's became sticky a bit and I washed it out with rubbing and alcohol.
I did this procedure to the increasingly gross rubberized plastic bezels on my otherwise still perfect mechanical keyboard - I used alcohol and soft bristle brushes to avoid scratching but it looks good as new 12 years later
Yes I had to clean an old Bluetooth speaker that was in storage (hot central Cali) for 5 years but ISP and melamine sponge is the way to go! Oh...and gloves! So sticky!
“Alcohol and lots of it. For the phone that is” Hugh if I needed to do this I would need some for myself too haha
The Palm Treo 750 is a GSM/UMTS smartphone released on January 8, 2007! 15 year old phones!
Thanks for telling us how to remove that sticky rubber cotting since my Blackberry 9900 has the back becoming sticky
I just tried to restore my dad's old treo 750 about a month ago but I cannot find the charger.
It has the melting problem the same as these but I didn't know a good way to clean it up fully, I did find the alcohol stopped it being so sticky and that's where I left it.
Aside from that I took apart every component to clean it and reassembled it.
Without the charger that's where it sits without being able to turn on.
0:35 BMW used this rubberized coating in some of their cars and they melted too.
I found a device like this: an old mp3 player, this one being a SanDisk Sansa. It has at least one issue: melting rubber on the back.
One thing I would suggest, is that right after (I do mean it like right away) you clean some plastic stuff with alcohol, whatever form may it be (isopropyl, ethyl, any), clean it up with some LCD cleaner. Plastics don't react the best to alcohol, not like they'll get destroyed like acetone, but still they don't react too well. The wipe with LCD cleaner removes any alcohol residue and seems to stop the reaction.
I've seen it on an optical drive I was cleaning up the front. Removing the sticker residue it had with alcohol worked great, but then the faded aspect stayed, which the LCD cleaning agent removed, completing the job. It looks like new now.
I would recommend having 3 solvents: alcohol, kerosene and acetone, where alcohol is the weakes and acetone is the stronges. If alcohol can't dissolve somehting - you switch to kerosene. In most cases it's safe to plactic, and easily removes "melted" rubber, duct tape residue etc. I had same issue, and removed it with kerosete and a piece of cloth. Acetone can dissolve most plastics, so should be used carefully.
This also happened to sky TV remotes in the uk from around 2005
I worked at AT&t when the treo 750 came out. Great device back then. Ah memories..
Hey man that i had that samsung while studying in Aus. Might still have the charger somewhere. That wheel on the side as you correctly deduced is a scroll wheel with a ok push button. Was a fun phone before blackberries took over 😅
Try baking soda mixed with water till you get a paste and rub it on the sticky rubber, if course you can't use it everywhere but this works wonders
6:10 “who thought that was a good feature”. To me, it’s maybe good because if you leave battery out of phone, it won’t swell. Maybe in Palm factory they were looking at this problem from long-term view and found this solution. But who knows, i guess we never find out
My hat off to you - I wouldn't have the patience to clean up even one of those phones.
Love your channel.
I have done the same thing with a bluetooth speaker i have. It worked great
What an odd episode of The Nugget Lucky Dip
i have that samsung, both international and US version!
ths one you got is the i600, mine is completely dead
the thing on the side is a scroll wheel, so fun to play with
The “phone is off” message just means the palm was in PDA mode. Holding the power button will turn it into phone mode from PDA mode