PSA : Battery corrosion in your hotshoe strobe? Try this before losing your mind.

Been away from the forums for a while, and unfortunately away from the camera as well. Pretty embarrassing, but I'm cleaning up my act as of late. Been trying to shoot a bunch more, and in the process I discovered that a battery had leaked inside my 580EXII. This happened at a friends daughters Christening, and luckily I had a backup. It wouldn't turn on at all, and I thought a trip to Canon service was in order - or worse - a new flash was in order.

I found this tip on Yahoo Answers, of all places. It worked like a charm for me, and hopefully it will help someone in the future should this happen for any of you guys/girls.

First step is to clean all the excess corrosion dust out with a Q-tip. I used canned air to blow the unit out, but I'm not sure if this is advisable, as it may spread the corrosion dust inside the unit. If you do choose to blow it out, do yourself a favor and do it outside with your eyes/skin away from the dust. Then, grab yourself a graphite pencil with a nicely broken in eraser.

Wow, haven't seen this old tip for more than 30 years! It DOES work - even better is if you can get hold of a typewriter eraser (to clarify for younger readers, a typewriter was an old keyboard device which preceded even the 'old-fashioned' word processor and marked directly onto the paper :rolleyes. They also used to make these in a pencil shape with a peel-off paper wrapping - absolutely ideal if you can still find one. I haven't tried it but I bet the Dremel rubber polishing disk would also work (manually applied) - bit difficult getting it down into the battery compartment though .

I guess we've all left batteries in at some time or other - I know I've had to clean up the residue quite a few times. RTFM; it almost always says "Remove the batteries ....." but we forget!

I recently purchased some of the Storacell battery holders for this exact reason (I haven't had this happen with any of my photography gear, but it has in other equipment over the years):

http://www.adorama.com …info=storacell&​category=0

More specifically, I picked up (2) of these, allowing me to store all 6 sets of Eneloops I own.

You could also use this method if you like soda instead of beer.

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=vJ9mFZ5wDag

I used to use a pencil, too. Then my local camera repair shot turned me on to this, which is made for that purpose & is fiberglass which won't remove any of the original metal from the part with the corrosion. While it's probably not all that important in these days of disposable products, when you've been using the same Vivitar strobes for 40 years because they never seem to die, it's probably not a bad idea to avoid removing original metal? ; )
Eurotool Scratch Brush, Fiberglass

Yep, that Eurotool fibreglass is the modern equivalent of the typewriter eraser. Should work just as well. It's the modern price too!

I wonder why he didn't try "clr" on the corroded area, rinsed and rubbed a few times and then followed up with blue magic to polish the metal....

c2thew wrote in post #14917658
I wonder why he didn't try "clr" on the corroded area, rinsed and rubbed a few times and then followed up with blue magic to polish the metal....

And how do you clean the terminals inside the battery compartment? Call me a coward if you like but anything which involves rinsing anywhere near flashgun innards makes me want to run away very, very fast. I don't even mind making chicken noises while I'm running

Whortleberry wrote in post #14917698
Call me a coward if you like but anything which involves rinsing anywhere near flashgun innards makes me want to run away very, very fast.

As long as you give it about two days to dry before putting batteries inside you can actually submerge it and nothing serious will happen. What may happen is the screws or the foot might rust but dunking it a few times in distilled water should help prevent that. Also electronic circuits can and should be cleaned with Alcohol because it evaporates very quickly without leaving residue. If find it much safer to understand how electricity works and what makes it dangerous rather then to simply fear it due to lack of understanding.

There's a vast difference between what you and I know and understand and what others may/may not comprehend. Always safer to recommend erring on the side of caution when advising folks with unquantifiable skill levels. Personally, I'm quite comfortable working on PCBs with SMDs down to 0603 level but I know many others who can't even hold a screwdriver straight. Hence the general admonition.

Eneloops for the win, no need to use alkys other than emergency backup IMO. Nice revovery though, I just had to remove corroded C cells from a modified mag lite, not fun!

Whortleberry wrote in post #14917698
And how do you clean the terminals inside the battery compartment? Call me a coward if you like but anything which involves rinsing anywhere near flashgun innards makes me want to run away very, very fast. I don't even mind making chicken noises while I'm running

did you see where the battery terminal has the corrosion? It's on the flap of the speedlite. How hard is it to clean the connections from an easy to access battery terminal?

also, I would not advise submerging anything underwater. Last I heard, electronics are ghastly afraid of tap water.

c2thew wrote in post #14920301
Last I heard, electronics are ghastly afraid of tap water.

Tap water can destroy anything including humans so be sure not to submerge yourself in it either.

But if you get an electronic device wet the best thing to do is let it dry for a few days. If it happens to get submerged by accident then distilled water is the key to rinse away mineral traces. Some may be skeptic but keep in mind there are applications where electricity and liquids actually work well together.

For the non-believers http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=wkrHkFwTNKo

Yep - we all believe absolutely everything we see on YouTube!
We've wandered a very long way from the OP about DRY cleaning of dirty contacts but if anyone wants to intentionally sluice their nice new 600EX-RT flash in any liquid (their choice) then they're very welcome.

Go on someone - prove me wrong! I'm used to being wrong (ask my domestic CEO!) and always ready to learn.

c2thew wrote in post #14920301
did you see where the battery terminal has the corrosion? It's on the flap of the speedlite. How hard is it to clean the connections from an easy to access battery terminal?.

Yes, I saw. But in every battery string of this arrangement there are two positive terminals (the terminals with the vents) deep inside the battery compartment. There's no guarantee that the weak, leaky cell in the chain will be one of the 50% with easy access to the contacts.

Whortleberry wrote in post #14921876
Yep - we all believe absolutely everything we see on YouTube!

Distilled water has been used for ages and for all types of applications including creating conductive salt solutions used in electroplating. If you think this is weird science get some distilled water and do a continuity check with an ohm meter.

Conductivity in water is affected by the presence of inorganic dissolved solids such as chloride, nitrate, sulfate, and phosphate anions (ions that carry a negative charge) or sodium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and aluminum cations (ions that carry a positive charge). Organic compounds like oil, phenol, alcohol, and sugar do not conduct electrical current very well and therefore have a low conductivity when in water.

http://water.epa.gov/t​ype/rsl/monitoring/vms​59.cfm