How to Clean Leaked Battery Gunk

Disclaimer: If you mess up your stuff, it is your fault!!! Not mine!!

This may not be the best way to clean a device that this happens to, but it's how I did it. The other day I went to play around with my night-vision goggles. When I flipped the on switch nothing happened, so I assumed the batteries were dead. When I opened the battery compartment to replace them I saw it. That nasty yellowish gunk that means the batteries burst.

(BTW, this is entered in the Craftsmen tools contest!! I don't have any tools except the bare basics and it's really limiting what I can make. If I won I'd be able to bring you lots of cool stuff!!)

Gear and Tools

Lets not forget safety. You will be doing some minor scraping with possibly sharp tools.

First picture: Work gloves, safety glasses, screwdriver set (here is a good set: http://www.craftsman.com/shc/s/p_10155_12602_00904107000P?vName=Hand+Tools&cName=Screwdrivers&sName=Screwdriver+Sets&prdNo=1&blockNo=1&blockType=L1 , pocket knife, and multi tool. You should also wear a dust mask or better.

Second picture: Wet paper towel and dry paper towel.

First the Easy Stuff

First get all the easy to get to battery contacts. The way I cleaned them was to scrape off the battery gunk as best I could, then wipe it with a damp paper towel, and lastly dry it off with the dry paper towel. Be careful on any springs, as you could bend or break them. I was going to use the knife or multi-tool blade to do the scraping, but I went with a flathead screwdriver instead.

Now the Hard Part

Due to the design of this device to access all the battery contacts I had to open up the whole battery pack. Fortunately this was easy on this device with just four screws, none of them hidden. I used the same scrape, wipe, dry technique here.

Put It All Back Together

Well, as the title says, put it back together!!!