So im starting to maintain and use my older game things again: whats the general agreed way to clean cartridges and the pins these days?
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in reply to @BigBeanDotGov's post:
a few physical retro game stores i've been to clean the contacts with 91% isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip as they're being purchased, but also if a cart has been very heavily used (tons of insertion marks / scratches) or is very dirty i do a bit of brasso first and then clean it up with the alcohol.
that worked well on a few of my genesis carts that were stubborn about not booting, but brasso is abrasive and can damage the connection from the pins if done too often or too harshly, so stick with IPA by default
Thank you! is it the same process for cleaning the pins inside the system?
more or less, yep. although to avoid bending the pins out of shape / into each other, i like to use a soft bristle toothbrush that i bought just for console maintenance with IPA instead of a q-tip, although it might not be easy to do that depending on the console and if you're comfortable disassembling it
nope, should be pretty typical as far as i'm aware. also, a can of compressed air can help with cartridge slots, but it's not strictly necessary (it also doubles down on making sure all the alcohol is dried up before powering on, but it dries pretty quickly on its own anyway)
have fun cleaning stuff! feel free to ask anything else if you're unsure