Die, sticky tactile rubber, die!

[TerraHertz]

A while ago (one year? Two?) I made the mistake of buying a cheap clamp meter with a 'tactile rubber' coating on the molded body. (I didn't know!)  Now, the very first time I want to actually use the meter, I find the 'tactile rubber' has become sticky decaying gunk.



As this stupid stuff usually goes after some quite short period. I'm convinced any designer invoking 'tactile rubber' is either stupid, or using it as a deliberate planned obsolescence timed sabotage.

I was going to throw it out. But then thought I'd try 'skinning it alive' as an experiment. Maybe it could be recovered?



The decaying gunk is pretty well adhered to the underlying hard plastic case, but it _does_ peel off with enough force. I began with a scalpel, but experimented with other things and found the flat end of a small, thin stainless steel ruler worked best. The peeling blade edge has to be fairly narrow, or it's too much effort to push. It's also best to have a blunt-ish edge, to not scratch the underlying plastic too much. Something like a mini paint scraper. A spudger could work too. Whatever you use it needs to have something solid to grip, because a fairly high force is needed.

Also I was working in chemical gloves (avoiding getting the decayed rubber on my skin) so dexterity suffers.



After discovering it was feasible to remove the gunk, it became necessary to disassemble the meter so I could work on just the case pieces.



Then get down to it. Simultaneously tedious and satisfying. Die, stupid rubber, die!



Most of it removed. The selector wheel sure looks plain now without all the fancy bumps and color contrasts, but it should still work OK.



Had to quit for a while. Packed up to clear the desk.



Cleaning the gloves and tools. Everything is contaminated with 'sticky'! Wearing the gloves, clean with turps. Finally scrub the desk top.



Back to it. This stage involved alternately wiping with turps-soaked tissue, scrubbing with brass wire brush and brillo scourer, and chasing out a few remnants along seams with the screwdriver.





The final result. Apart from the plain wheel you'd hardly know anything was missing. Some scratching on the back where I started with the scalpel. Could buff it out, but I don't care. It works, and feels like any normal hard plastic thing now. Infinitely better than the sticky goo.

[Martin Miranda]

what solvent did you used? turpentine i use alcohol for removing the coating.

[Runco990]

God I hate that stuff!   I happen to own an ultrasonic cleaner...  Quite by accident I discovered that 20 minutes in the tank with some Branson EC (Which I normally use to clean PCB's) COMPLETELY removes that crap and leaves a perfect surface.

Only drawback is that you have to take apart the device to do this.

Done some cordless drills, several hard drive enclosures from Lenovo (the encrypted ones, so worth the trouble) many knobs, etc.

Before that lucky discovery I sat there with solvents and rags as well.  These coatings should be banned.  I swear they are put on things to decay and force people to just buy a new tool because it's disgusting.

[Gyro]

Meths works too, with a bit of elbow grease!

[jpanhalt]

Almost any organic solvent will work to get rid of the sticky stuff.  The real question is how they will affect the original rigid plastic shell.  I like the use of an aqueous system for that reason.  Absent that, I would stick to relatively weak non-polar solvents (e.g. "mineral" turpentine) or simple alcohols.

[magic]

I found that IPA works very well for those thin rubber coatings on "gayming" computer mice and keyboards.
Ten minutes of rubbing and the filth is gone, leaving pristine smooth plastic.

No apparent harm to ABS.
Acetone would be a different story

[m3vuv]

had a laptop covered in this shit as well,think it was a dell,tried just about every solent i had to try and shift it,came down to a scraper and lots of time and elbo grease,scratched it to hell but at least it was usable after,just looked a total mess,in the end i brought a new lid assy.