alt Hacker NewsI’m visiting some family and I’m a hero for fixing a couple devices that stopped working from alkaline batteries by using a bit of foil paper to overcome the corroded contacts.
Maybe not great in the long run (steel and aluminum don’t like eachother)… maybe I should have put on some grease…
I swab the corroded contacts with white vinegar from the kitchen. It turns the white gunk into a foamy blob, and I assume it etches off enough of the corrosion to restore conductivity. I wipe the foamy part with the dry side of the cotton swab, and the device usually works again.
I started doing this as a kid, reasoning that the white gunk looked like baking soda, which is fun to combine with vinegar, so let's see what happens. I just looked it up, and it appears that the process is legitimate and safe. The vinegar turns potassium carbonate into potassium acetate, also producing carbon dioxide.