Decaying rubber - why do manufacturers still use the stuff?

DHR

DHR

DHR

Soldato
Joined
30 Apr 2003
Posts
3,475
Just picked up my battery charger and found that it's rubber coating has started to 'decay' leaving a horrible sticky mess. It's only a £30 jobby so not overly annoyed but it's brought memories back of my B&W speakers that went the same way :(

Other than to generate another sale after X number of years, why do manufacturers use the stuff still! It feels great until it makes something unusable.

I've heard various fixes for it over the years, IPA brush, bicarb paste etc. but I'm forever amazed at how often the stuff still gets used.
 
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It is what it is, thankfully not used on too much any more. You can clean it off 100% using pure rubbing alcohol and a microfibre cloth. That's exactly what I did with one of my gadgets:

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mrk said:
It is what it is, thankfully not used on too much any more. You can clean it off 100% using pure rubbing alcohol and a microfibre cloth. That's exactly what I did with one of my gadgets:
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Yup, I have a Logitech mouse that went all sticky and horrible, I cleaned it with IPA and it's been fine since.
 
So I finally got around to cleaning up the BL700 battery charger I initially posted this about.

I think I've now found another option that worked way better than I expected... bicarbonate of soda :eek: Can't recall where I originally read it now, but mixed into a paste it worked a treat, brought the soft touch stuff up brilliantly.

It'll definitely vary based on the compound that was originally used but yeah. success. Just need to be brave enough to try it on some old B&W speakers now that suffered the same fate.
 
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