Battery contact cleaner

Hi folks,

I normally use an alcohol based liquid and cotton bud to clean battery terminals and the contacts in the battery compartment but was wondering if http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1_103_10313&products_id=5993
was a decent alternative - anyone used such a product?

Thanks
Kimbo.

Hi Kimbo,
You can get one of these at any good model shop. They are normally called a fibreglass burnishing brush. You can also get larger and smaller versions and I have seen other refils such as brass and even steel. They are very good at cleaning metals and act like very fine emery paper but follow contours well. A word of warning though, you will end up with lots of tiny fragments of glass which can be very irritating to the skin and you certainly don't want the residue in places it shouldn't be. They are best used on "lumps" of metal. For battery cpmpartments, they are great for the flat plate type contacts but very difficult to use on the coiled spring type.

Kim

Excellent, thankyou very much kim - I'll be getting one soon!

Thankfully, I don't have a problem with a camera at the moment but there are so many electronic gizmos that rely on batteries, that I thought I'd better invest in something effective.
Actually, I've got an alarm clock with furry contacts, caused by battery leakage, so I can test it on that.

Thanks again.