Retrobrite Amiga 1200 Keys With An Aquarium Heater ( Indoor Retrobrite )

[@mart1nandersson]

UV is much more important than heat to my experience. I've been using liquid H2O2 in zip lock bags for the past two years. It even works outdoors already in April/May which seldom goes above 15C here in Sweden. I just make sure that the UV index is high enough by looking up the forecast from our national weather service.

[@DavePoo2]

That does appear to be true. Retrobriting seems to be such a dark art. The keys that i put in the water with the heater did get brighter (in pitch black conditions), so clearly UV isn't required for it to work, but it certainly did go much faster with the UV involved.

[@cannfoddr]

UV light

[@bitoxic]

I recently tried retro brighting my keys using 6% HP cream in a very large ziplock bag. Left it in an insulated box that had tin foil inside and placed a single UV led bulb. After 6 hours I then put the keys in a plastic container that had 3% HP liquid and put that back in the insulated box with the UV led bulb again. In the box temperature was constant 28 degrees. Left that overnight. The next day the keys were good as new. Very happy with the result. I feel you really need UV light for best results.

[@DavePoo2]

Previously the hair cream, bags and UV light has worked very well for me on keys. I wanted to try something new here after the failure i had with the A500 case. The idea was to get a method that (even if not faster) would be 100% reliable in terms of getting a nice retrobrite on the plastic. The tub and heat method could be used to do an entire case (not just keys), but unfortunately was incredibly slow (hence i had to add the UV light). It still might be advantageous to have a very slow retrobrite method, as it is easy to over do it on some plastics and make them much whiter than they were supposed to ever look, so if you ever see bright white A500's on eBay, then that's what happened to them.

[@paszTube]

I stuck yellowed keys in a thermos flask, with a mixture of water and H2O2 at around 60 degrees celsius (any hotter and the plastic might deform I heard somewhere). The thermos flask wasn't a well insulated one and this probably was a good thing as the thing nearly exploded after a while! I heard a very loud pop from the kitchen, The lid was still on the flask, but a bit opened. I'm obviously no chemist... Apparently H2O2 (+ water?) expands when heated up. Just like your zip lock bags. They keys did came out slightly whiter but not much. The inside of the flask was very very very very clean after the whole experiment!

[@DavePoo2]

Ha, good story. I think everything expands when heated. I think 60 might have been pushing it just a little.

[@DavePoo2]

I would like it to be known that the TNG episode where Q looks at Picard's fish tank (used in the thumbnail) was aired 1 month after the A1200 was released. But as Q has unlimited power over space and time, it doesn't really make much difference to him.

[@BillyMartin4Life]

but who would win in a fight, Q or the Prophets from DS9? lol

[@DavePoo2]

@@BillyMartin4Life I can't say, I've never watched an episode of DS9

[@daviniarobbins9298]

@@DavePoo2 DS9 is in my opinion the best Trek ever made. At least once you get to the 3rd season.

[@DavePoo2]

@@daviniarobbins9298 2 seasons is lot to watch before it gets good, but I have heard good things about it.

[@RetroCCTech]

I have seen some suggestions using UV vinyl protection spray for your car dash, which might be worth a go in prolonging the finish. I will be trying that in summer.

[@DavePoo2]

It might be worth a try. I've got an A600 that after a year has gone back to a yellowish color, but still nowhere near as bad as what it was before.

[@AlenMarkov]

Very satisfying!

[@Simcore999]

👍

[@JonathanSwiftUK]

As the bag is quite small I would have put them in a pot on the stove, or a slow cooker. Great job with the UV - tell us what type/model of lamp, where to get it, please.

[@DavePoo2]

The problem with the stove is controlling the temperature, if you go up to or around 60ºC then the plastic is going to start to deform. I wanted something that was thermostatically controlled. The links for all the equipment are in the video description.

[@Zbroin]

Hi, your keycaps are not that yellow believe me 😜 i have seen worse.

[@DavePoo2]

What computer was that on?

[@off1k]

You could spray paint your keys with an enamel plastic clear undercoat (2 coats) and then an enamel flat or gloss clear top coat (maybe 3 coats) after retrobrite. I'm pretty sure that should stop the yellowing again. Get the paint from a hardware store or use autopaint. I've painted 3 of my Amiga's including 1 keyboard. The keyboard I did was undercoat, satin black. Then used satin black Amiga keyboard stickers, then clear gloss top coat to protect the stickers.

[@DavePoo2]

I don't think paint and stickers are the solution for me, but it's good to hear about all the stuff people do to restore their old stuff

[@tiemanowo]

@@DavePoo2 I think you misunderstood @off1k. He was talking about clear / transparent protective layer not a opaque paint with stickers

[@bigd5090]

But since UV started the degradation what's to say that this extra dose of UV doesn't accelerate the degradation of the long term? 50 degrees C of heat seems the sweet spot. I tried this in an oven with creme peroxide brushed onto both the case and the keys then put in zip lock/tie handle knotted bags (not leaky cling film) and yes it took in the region of a day for the key-caps and 4 hours for the case but it worked great! Just agitate/reapply the creme with a fine brush frequently to avoid marbling.

[@DavePoo2]

UV, it's the cause of and solution to all of our problems

[@daviniarobbins9298]

This is probably going to be a silly question but why didn't you just buy a new set of keys from the Amiga Store? The original keys are just going to yellow again given enough time anyway.

[@DavePoo2]

There is nothing functionally wrong with the original keys, so if they can be cosmetically fixed easily then I think it makes sense to do that. If they were broken or damaged then I would consider it. I think we as humans throw enough plastic away as it is.

[@retrojb101]

Thanks for that. I’ve got a whole bunch of consoles that need retrobriting so may try the aquarium heater and uv light approach. Some people spray uv protector spray (303 products uv protector spray on Amazon) afterwards to help preserve the colour for longer. Where did you get the hydrochloride from? Keep up the good work!

[@DavePoo2]

Thanks, I've added the link to peroxide in the video description.

[@products-explorer]

good videos

[@MrClump]

I've retrobrighted A1200 and A600 keys that were as yellow as that with a similar technique, but used a Sous Vide stick instead. Heating the water to 55C, no UV lamp and they are finished in under 6 hours; you do have to remove the beige keys sooner though as otherwise they bleach. I removed the beige keys an hour or so before the end and then blitzed the remaining white ones at 60C for the rest of the time, that final short period at a high temperature works wonders in getting rid of any residual yellow. I figure it doesn't matter if the white keys get bleached, so long as they don't melt! I've retrobrighted an A1200 case also, I immersed the entire case in a bath of liquid peroxide and heated the peroxide directly with the sous vide stick! It worked a treat, not very safe though! Also, don't do what I did and try to use a slow cooker set to low, I melted an entire A600 keyboard doing that. :-(

[@DavePoo2]

It's good to hear that the technique you used works really well. I would have liked the aquarium heater to work as it's cheap and in such a convenient package for placing in the water. Somebody else in the comments had suggested using a slow cooker instead, but I had already warned that getting water to temperature is not the problem, it's controlling it that is the problem. I think one other thing to say is that the A600 & 1200 keys are supposed to be very white, so if you have a very fast retrobrite technique then it doesn't matter if they get overdone, if you have keys that are supposed to be cream colored, then a slower technique is probably better (use a lower temperature on your thermostat).

[@MrClump]

@@DavePoo2 yeah, I used the same technique on an Atari ST case. Let's just say it now needs to be painted...

[@DavePoo2]

That's OK, it's only an Atari ST :)

[@HoldandModify]

I’ve never had the patience for this. Hat off to you sir! Your 1200 rescue has been a lot of fun. Thank you!

[@DavePoo2]

Well, I've taken one for the Team here so other people don't have to waste 50 hours of their life doing this.

[@HoldandModify]

@@DavePoo2 aww.. thank you for your service!

[@StayCoolKeto]

*This was so satisfying! ahhh I love the Amiga! so worried about mine in the loft* 😫

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, it turned out really nice in the end, it still looks good now.

[@christiaandockers3755]

I tried all the methods but the easiest way with the best results is putting the keys in a closed yoghurt container with a bit of peroxide gel from the barder. Oven 65C shake it every 30 minutes or so. Thats it. Very yellow keys will take a few hours. Larger parts, same thing, but instead wrap in plastic and redo every 30 minutes to prevent staining. forget the UV and other stuff. Just oven and redo every 30 minutes.

[@DavePoo2]

To do that, you need an oven that can control the temperature accurately, if you start getting to 70C then they keys will deform.

[@christiaandockers3755]

​@@DavePoo2 You have a point there. The oven needs to have a decent thermostat. Most ovens do. 65c is the sweet spot. had a shrunken snes front ones. If you're not sure, don't. 65 should be ok.