Anyone else not mind a discolored console?
Anyone else not mind a console discolored from the flame retardant in the plastic?
As long as its not dirty, broken or stinks like tobacco then I feel like it adds to the character of the unit.
Don't get me wrong, a factory fresh crisp "original" color console is nice, but the smokey yellow-brown color reminds me of the 80s when WAY more people smoked inside.
Also found it weird how the casting process would cause different parts of a console to either discolor or not. Like a mutation or something.
Nothing wrong with retrobrite, just saying I would never do it
*pics courtesy of google
As long as its not dirty, broken or stinks like tobacco then I feel like it adds to the character of the unit.
Don't get me wrong, a factory fresh crisp "original" color console is nice, but the smokey yellow-brown color reminds me of the 80s when WAY more people smoked inside.
Also found it weird how the casting process would cause different parts of a console to either discolor or not. Like a mutation or something.
Nothing wrong with retrobrite, just saying I would never do it
*pics courtesy of google
Comments
For me growing up sucked ass, so much of my adult life has been reclaiming what I missed, and a part of that is keeping my things nice and clean, pristine.
That NES looks like a custom paint job.
I have never had the brittleness issue-interesting.
I have for sure. It was surprisingly brittle in fact. Incredibly fragile.
I have never had the brittleness issue-interesting.
I have for sure. It was surprisingly brittle in fact. Incredibly fragile.
Just cleaned a super yellowed NES (what prompted this thread) and didnt have an issue at all. Even put the screws in with my makita 18v impact driver Like always (don't try that at home kids) with no stripping.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the other yellowed consoles Ive cleaned.
Can someone knowledgeable explain the process that causes the fire retardant to make the plastic yellow and brittle?
I have never had the brittleness issue-interesting.
I have for sure. It was surprisingly brittle in fact. Incredibly fragile.
I have one that is cracked in multiple places and is all sorts of busted but still works just fine
I have never had the brittleness issue-interesting.
I have for sure. It was surprisingly brittle in fact. Incredibly fragile.
Just cleaned a super yellowed NES (what prompted this thread) and didnt have an issue at all. Even put the screws in with my makita 18v impact driver Like always (don't try that at home kids) with no stripping.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the other yellowed consoles Ive cleaned.
Can someone knowledgeable explain the process that causes the fire retardant to make the plastic yellow and brittle?
Caution: Contains graphic violence against a SNES console.
Just listen to the sound it makes when it snaps. This took incredibly little effort to break a piece off, and it had that peanut brittle CRACK to it. Two more pieces fell off as I put it back together. Also, one of the main (big, usually sturdy) round parts where the screws goes in broke off a while back, and I gorilla glued it back into place.
Just cleaned a super yellowed NES (what prompted this thread) and didnt have an issue at all. Even put the screws in with my makita 18v impact driver Like always (don't try that at home kids) with no stripping.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the other yellowed consoles Ive cleaned.
Can someone knowledgeable explain the process that causes the fire retardant to make the plastic yellow and brittle?
Perhaps the screw holes hadn't yellowed and it was just the outer plastic. Either way, you should be extremely careful handling a yellowed console like it is made of glass.
From what I gathered on the internet, Bromine was used as a fire retardant but over time it very slowly reacts with sunlight and makes the plastic yellow and brittle. That's the gist and I don't know the exact chemistry behind it.
I have never had the brittleness issue-interesting.
I have for sure. It was surprisingly brittle in fact. Incredibly fragile.
Just cleaned a super yellowed NES (what prompted this thread) and didnt have an issue at all. Even put the screws in with my makita 18v impact driver Like always (don't try that at home kids) with no stripping.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the other yellowed consoles Ive cleaned.
Can someone knowledgeable explain the process that causes the fire retardant to make the plastic yellow and brittle?
This is all coming from a forensic chemistry degree I obtained many years ago, but haven't put to use in nearly as long a time. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
When the SNES was being produced, Nintendo used ABS Plastic to create the plastic shells. ABS is great because it's cheap, sturdy, and easy to injection mold into anything you would want. It's a mixture of three organic molecules that cross-link and form a cohesive structure whose properties depend upon the mixtures of each component.
Regardless of the mixture, however, one property of ABS is that it is quite flammable. Light a piece on fire and it will burn quite readily and with plenty of energy to ignite other materials. To prevent this, a flame retardent chemical that would stop a fire in the ABS plastic was required. If not added, the company producing goods from that plastic would face many lawsuits. Halogenated hydrocarbons make fantastic flame retardants as they will stifle flames of any origin really. One of the cheaper flame retardants that will readily mix with the ABS mixture while molten and not chemically react directly with the mixture is one containing bromine.
Bromine is a vile, reddish-brown liquid that vaporizes readily and is quite similar to chlorine except that it's a liquid at room temperature/pressure. Bromine stinks and also has a strong color. As the ABS mixed with this brominated hydrocarbon flame retardent is exposed to heat/cool cycles, UV light, oxygen in the air, etc., it eventually breaks down and free radicals of bromine can then attack the compounds in the ABS mixture. This causes light to be absorbed differently, and thus alters the color. One can "reverse" the process by exposing to oxygen radicals and heat/light, but eventually the yellow WILL come back.
When the bromine radicals are present, they will attack many parts of the ABS structure that formed as the plastic cooled. This results in a breakdown of the plastic structure itself which causes it to become incredibly brittle and susceptible to cracking/breaking.
Only some parts of the SNES typically yellow severely, and that's due to Nintendo eventually learning how to properly mix all of the components of the plastic and flame retardent mixture properly. Still, a lot of shells were made using the improper formula and if you are a business, you aren't going to throw something away that you've already spent time and money producing. Later runs of the SNES are more common as still gray, while earlier runs typically are fully yellowed. In the middle, you see a lot of top/bottom color differences.
The bromine flame retardants are actually purely white compounds.
Just cleaned a super yellowed NES (what prompted this thread) and didnt have an issue at all. Even put the screws in with my makita 18v impact driver Like always (don't try that at home kids) with no stripping.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the other yellowed consoles Ive cleaned.
Can someone knowledgeable explain the process that causes the fire retardant to make the plastic yellow and brittle?
Perhaps the screw holes hadn't yellowed and it was just the outer plastic. Either way, you should be extremely careful handling a yellowed console like it is made of glass.
From what I gathered on the internet, Bromine was used as a fire retardant but over time it very slowly reacts with sunlight and makes the plastic yellow and brittle. That's the gist and I don't know the exact chemistry behind it.
I dont plan on ever treating a console like glass dissasembled and fixed multiple consoles in the last 20 years, if its not super rare, it will be culled if it can't handle being taken apart.
I have never had the brittleness issue-interesting.
I have for sure. It was surprisingly brittle in fact. Incredibly fragile.
Just cleaned a super yellowed NES (what prompted this thread) and didnt have an issue at all. Even put the screws in with my makita 18v impact driver Like always (don't try that at home kids) with no stripping.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the other yellowed consoles Ive cleaned.
Can someone knowledgeable explain the process that causes the fire retardant to make the plastic yellow and brittle?
This is all coming from a forensic chemistry degree I obtained many years ago, but haven't put to use in nearly as long a time. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
When the SNES was being produced, Nintendo used ABS Plastic to create the plastic shells. ABS is great because it's cheap, sturdy, and easy to injection mold into anything you would want. It's a mixture of three organic molecules that cross-link and form a cohesive structure whose properties depend upon the mixtures of each component.
Regardless of the mixture, however, one property of ABS is that it is quite flammable. Light a piece on fire and it will burn quite readily and with plenty of energy to ignite other materials. To prevent this, a flame retardent chemical that would stop a fire in the ABS plastic was required. If not added, the company producing goods from that plastic would face many lawsuits. Halogenated hydrocarbons make fantastic flame retardants as they will stifle flames of any origin really. One of the cheaper flame retardants that will readily mix with the ABS mixture while molten and not chemically react directly with the mixture is one containing bromine.
Bromine is a vile, reddish-brown liquid that vaporizes readily and is quite similar to chlorine except that it's a liquid at room temperature/pressure. Bromine stinks and also has a strong color. As the ABS mixed with this brominated hydrocarbon flame retardent is exposed to heat/cool cycles, UV light, oxygen in the air, etc., it eventually breaks down and free radicals of bromine can then attack the compounds in the ABS mixture. This causes light to be absorbed differently, and thus alters the color. One can "reverse" the process by exposing to oxygen radicals and heat/light, but eventually the yellow WILL come back.
When the bromine radicals are present, they will attack many parts of the ABS structure that formed as the plastic cooled. This results in a breakdown of the plastic structure itself which causes it to become incredibly brittle and susceptible to cracking/breaking.
Only some parts of the SNES typically yellow severely, and that's due to Nintendo eventually learning how to properly mix all of the components of the plastic and flame retardent mixture properly. Still, a lot of shells were made using the improper formula and if you are a business, you aren't going to throw something away that you've already spent time and money producing. Later runs of the SNES are more common as still gray, while earlier runs typically are fully yellowed. In the middle, you see a lot of top/bottom color differences.
Great explanation, thank you.
I wanted him to be proud of his SNES and I didn't want his first impression to be disappointment in the condition. The only completely non-yellowed console was my personal console so I got a decent condition console from Facebook market and replaced a couple yellowed parts with parts from my junk consoles (even the yellowest usually have a good panel or two). It still had a noticeably yellowed controller port faceplate because all spares were yellow and there was a chip in one corner.
I decided that it was worth Retr0briting because it was a small and easy part, but if I was going to be doing it anyway and I already had the junk consoles taken apart then I should do a top shell too so he won't have that chip in the corner.
Now, all of them look decent and not yellowed even though I was personally fine with it. Oh well!
As for these "dirty" consoles....eeeewww nope they look like they've sat in a pool of cigarette smoke for many moons - would happily pay more for a non-colored one personally.
This is all coming from a forensic chemistry degree I obtained many years ago, but haven't put to use in nearly as long a time. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
When the SNES was being produced, Nintendo used ABS Plastic to create the plastic shells. ABS is great because it's cheap, sturdy, and easy to injection mold into anything you would want. It's a mixture of three organic molecules that cross-link and form a cohesive structure whose properties depend upon the mixtures of each component.
Regardless of the mixture, however, one property of ABS is that it is quite flammable. Light a piece on fire and it will burn quite readily and with plenty of energy to ignite other materials. To prevent this, a flame retardent chemical that would stop a fire in the ABS plastic was required. If not added, the company producing goods from that plastic would face many lawsuits. Halogenated hydrocarbons make fantastic flame retardants as they will stifle flames of any origin really. One of the cheaper flame retardants that will readily mix with the ABS mixture while molten and not chemically react directly with the mixture is one containing bromine.
Bromine is a vile, reddish-brown liquid that vaporizes readily and is quite similar to chlorine except that it's a liquid at room temperature/pressure. Bromine stinks and also has a strong color. As the ABS mixed with this brominated hydrocarbon flame retardent is exposed to heat/cool cycles, UV light, oxygen in the air, etc., it eventually breaks down and free radicals of bromine can then attack the compounds in the ABS mixture. This causes light to be absorbed differently, and thus alters the color. One can "reverse" the process by exposing to oxygen radicals and heat/light, but eventually the yellow WILL come back.
When the bromine radicals are present, they will attack many parts of the ABS structure that formed as the plastic cooled. This results in a breakdown of the plastic structure itself which causes it to become incredibly brittle and susceptible to cracking/breaking.
Only some parts of the SNES typically yellow severely, and that's due to Nintendo eventually learning how to properly mix all of the components of the plastic and flame retardent mixture properly. Still, a lot of shells were made using the improper formula and if you are a business, you aren't going to throw something away that you've already spent time and money producing. Later runs of the SNES are more common as still gray, while earlier runs typically are fully yellowed. In the middle, you see a lot of top/bottom color differences.
Yeah. I know that they had the issue mostly resolved at least by the end of 1993 (probably much earlier) because those really didn't yellow. I've seen some VERY yellow early console but most of those also have a panel or two that is seemingly unaffected.
I always imagined a huge vat of melted plastic that gets used to make the various different parts where someone pours the flame retardant in and fails to mix it properly, which is why some parts have a bad mix and others do it and which parts are affected seem randomly distributed across consoles. I know that's not how injection molding works (they have small pellets that are melted as they are injected) but it seemed to explain it for me.
Obviously they make a lot of each part and stockpile them. They probably wouldn't notice a bad mixture until parts start to yellow so that had to happen before they tweaked their process.
No cigarette smell that myth was busted long ago
Actually, being exposed to cigarette smoke can indeed turn a console yellow like that. Good thing is unlike the discoloring from the fire retardant chemical, cigarette smoke stains CAN be cleaned off.
I know this to be true, first hand experience. I've gotten quite a few nasty cigarette smoke stained Nintendos and while the color can wash out, that awful smell still lingers for a while.