Stabilant - Worth the $$$ premium?
02-23-2016, 12:18 AM
#1
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Stabilant - Worth the $$$ premium?
Hey all,
About to embark on my CE Panel refresh soon and am reading up on some of the walkthroughs (probably going to follow Sharkskin's)
As a disciple of Stan's, I've learned to lean heavily on DeOxit when I'm doing anything electrical-related. However, I've noticed that many of the CE Panel refresh write-ups mention using Stabilant.
Was just about to pop for some on Amazon, and then I saw the price - $50 for the smallest amount!
Considering you can get a can of DeOxit for ~$15, is 3X+ the amount for the Stabilant worth it?
Thanks for the input!
About to embark on my CE Panel refresh soon and am reading up on some of the walkthroughs (probably going to follow Sharkskin's)
As a disciple of Stan's, I've learned to lean heavily on DeOxit when I'm doing anything electrical-related. However, I've noticed that many of the CE Panel refresh write-ups mention using Stabilant.
Was just about to pop for some on Amazon, and then I saw the price - $50 for the smallest amount!
Considering you can get a can of DeOxit for ~$15, is 3X+ the amount for the Stabilant worth it?
Thanks for the input!
02-23-2016, 07:06 AM
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The $50 bottle will last forever. Apply it with a model paint brush.
02-23-2016, 11:35 AM
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Musings of a metallurgist, book-smart, not otherwise:
Take two pieces of metal, clean their surfaces off abrasively to bare metal. Within microseconds, they become coated with water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. Soon thereafter, there's a thin coating of various hydrated oxides and nitrides. There's no such thing as bare metal, really.
I have no idea what's in Deoxit, but let's say it is something that attacks this junk, absorbs it, and carries it away with a liberal spray (apparently, it does no harm elsewhere, though stuff capable of attacking an oxide is normally nasty - this puzzles me). Now you squeeze the two pieces together, the deoxit is mostly displaced, and you get good metal-to-metal contact. Not everywhere: the two surfaces are microscopically rough. The deoxit is trapped in the - love this word - interstices ("in TERST ta sees" - try working it into your next conversation). If it stays there, and does not absorb or transmit oxygen, it's a good situation for long term conductivity.
Without the deoxit, electrical connections work because enough junk is displaced by force to produce metal-to-metal contact. More torque on the bolt, more contact. Softer metal, more contact. For high current applications, the contact may be improved with a good jolt when the oxide is unstable at high temperature - you'll be doing some micro-spot welding. Copper oxide is cooperative in this way. Aluminum oxide is not, notably, so something like deoxit is required or your house will burn down.
For low-current applications, you may lose conductivity over time, hence gold-plated contacts - gold does not form the junk that nearly every other metal does. The grounds vital to our computers and other low-current devices will be the least reliable, according to these musings which have been placed interstitially among more useful comments.
Since most electrical connections can easily be formed without deoxit if you start with reasonably clean surfaces, it is possible that deoxit is nothing more than a good sealant, with only pretensions to cleaning. That's ok, but if so, make sure you do most of the cleaning to "bare metal", and use a healthy amount of torque on your interstices.
Take two pieces of metal, clean their surfaces off abrasively to bare metal. Within microseconds, they become coated with water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. Soon thereafter, there's a thin coating of various hydrated oxides and nitrides. There's no such thing as bare metal, really.
I have no idea what's in Deoxit, but let's say it is something that attacks this junk, absorbs it, and carries it away with a liberal spray (apparently, it does no harm elsewhere, though stuff capable of attacking an oxide is normally nasty - this puzzles me). Now you squeeze the two pieces together, the deoxit is mostly displaced, and you get good metal-to-metal contact. Not everywhere: the two surfaces are microscopically rough. The deoxit is trapped in the - love this word - interstices ("in TERST ta sees" - try working it into your next conversation). If it stays there, and does not absorb or transmit oxygen, it's a good situation for long term conductivity.
Without the deoxit, electrical connections work because enough junk is displaced by force to produce metal-to-metal contact. More torque on the bolt, more contact. Softer metal, more contact. For high current applications, the contact may be improved with a good jolt when the oxide is unstable at high temperature - you'll be doing some micro-spot welding. Copper oxide is cooperative in this way. Aluminum oxide is not, notably, so something like deoxit is required or your house will burn down.
For low-current applications, you may lose conductivity over time, hence gold-plated contacts - gold does not form the junk that nearly every other metal does. The grounds vital to our computers and other low-current devices will be the least reliable, according to these musings which have been placed interstitially among more useful comments.
Since most electrical connections can easily be formed without deoxit if you start with reasonably clean surfaces, it is possible that deoxit is nothing more than a good sealant, with only pretensions to cleaning. That's ok, but if so, make sure you do most of the cleaning to "bare metal", and use a healthy amount of torque on your interstices.
