Anybody use WD-40 Electrical Contact Cleaner on the Charger or truck socket

[chl]

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-clean-and-inspect-your-charge-port.29901/

Yea, I would not us alcohol and a Q-tip on any high current electrical connections like in the charge port.
The Q-tip might leave behind fibers that will burn under high currents.

And alcohol is not really a very good cleaner for electrical contacts, if you have no other choice, okay, but it can leave some residue, a small amount of residue, but at high currents, every little bit counts!!

Buy a commercial grade contact cleaner instead, like CRC, WD-40 Specialist Contact Cleaner or
DeoxIT D-series (great for rusty guitar strings too by the way).

https://caig.com/deoxit-d-series/

Sponsored

 

[Adventureboy]

Yea, I would not us alcohol and a Q-tip on any high current electrical connections like in the charge port.
The Q-tip might leave behind fibers that will burn under high currents.

And alcohol is not really a very good cleaner for electrical contacts, if you have no other choice, okay, but it can leave some residue, a small amount of residue, but at high currents, every little bit counts!!

Buy a commercial grade contact cleaner instead, like CRC, WD-40 Specialist Contact Cleaner or
DeoxIT D-series (great for rusty guitar strings too by the way).

https://caig.com/deoxit-d-series/

No to DeoxIT. It leaves a residue and not good for high current applications. Others are ok - Alcohol is way better than DeoxIT. Use compressed air to blow any potential fibers away both before and after. Use a NO RESIDUE cleaner.

 

[chl]

PS: sometimes I use a clean pencil eraser on flat contacts like ribbon connectors or PCI contacts on graphics cards for example, works pretty well...not applicable to the charge port connectors though.

Whatever you do not not use a metal scraper or file - they will leave pits in the contacts that will be hot spot when current flows!

If the problem is an old AA battery in a flashlight that oozed for example, and you don't have contact cleaner handy, you could use a plastic utensil (knife) or old toothbrush with some baking soda to get the bulk of it off and out of the way then use the alcohol swab method - it's a low current connection.

There are also these things called contact cleaning strips great for certain uses:

Contact Cleaning Strips are made from specially developed card, impregnated with a speciality Contact Lubricant. They offer an extremely easy and effective method of returning switches to full working order after they become worn or contaminated. They can also be used on new switches to extend their lifetime. Reduces contact resistance and increases reliability of contacts.

https://electrolube.com/product/ccs-contact-cleaning-strips/

 

[chl]

No to DeoxIT. It leaves a residue and not good for high current applications. Others are ok - Alcohol is way better than DeoxIT. Use compressed air to blow any potential fibers away both before and after. Use a NO RESIDUE cleaner.

There are several version of DexoIT including "DeoxIT D Series, DeoxIT L27-ME, or DeoxIT GOLD which are specifically designed for high-current applications and are safe to use, but ensure you also remove the excess cleaner to prevent issues .

• DeoxIT D Series: A good general-purpose cleaner for reducing contact resistance, including in high-current applications.
• DeoxIT L27-ME: A specific product recommended by the manufacturer for high-current and high-voltage marine environments.
• DeoxIT GOLD: Suitable for high-conductivity applications, it also provides a protective layer on the contacts.

I am assuming the user will follow the instructions and wipe away excess cleaner and any residues after using - the same would be true for ANY cleaner.

 

[chl]

BTW, does anyone know what Ford recommends if anything for port cleaning?

 

[chl]

FYI: There is actually a product from MOC for EV charge port cleaning - buyer beware.

 

[chl]

An an Amazon product to do the same (lol, with 1 review - buyer beware):

KICTeam - EV Charger Cleaning Kit with Cleaning Brushes, Cleaning Swabs, Scraper & Pick Tools, EV Touchscreen Cleaner and Microfiber Screen Cloths - Safely Cleans EV Charging Station & EV Touchscreens


https://www.amazon.com/KICTeam-Cleaning-Touchscreen-Microfiber-Touchscreens/dp/B0F2VXWQ87

 

[chl]

This Tesla owner went the full 9 yards on his cleaning job:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/cleaning-the-vehicle-charge-port-pins.84912/

 

[K6CCC]

They make a special formulation for contacts.

I stand corrected. I did not know there was a specific contact cleaner version of WD-40. I was assuming that the original poster was incorrectly referring to normal WD-40 as a "contact cleaner".

Sponsored