Avian’s Blog

The batteries in the remote control for my DVD player leaked. I thought it would be best to clean it out thoroughly as soon as possible. The electrolyte from the alkaline batteries attacks the phenolic paper substrate that is used for the cheap circuit boards. If left uncleaned the circuit board delaminates and basically falls apart after a few years. This is what happened to the remote for my old Hi-Fi and the circuit is more or less irreparable after that happens.

This is the remote model RC-5340 that came with the Philips DVP3360 DVD player.

Cleaning all the mess left by the batteries required opening the plastic enclosure. I couldn't do a good job through the battery compartment alone. Unfortunately the enclosure is really tightly held together with plastic tabs. I found it impossible to pry open without damage using my normal tools. There is almost no gap between the top plate and the lower part. I finally managed to open it with the iFixit Jimmy metal spudger tool kindly borrowed from Matjaž.

The best strategy was to find a weak spot along the longer sides and then work the gap from there. You can see on my photos where the plastic tabs are located. The tabs in the top and bottom sides are so tight that I couldn't open the enclosure without breaking some of them.

The chip is marked "ET3013 0907".

I scrubbed the whole thing with soap and water, dried it and also cleaned the rubber contacts with ethanol. There are already some dark spots on the PCB where the electrolyte has started to attack the board. I hope those won't spread too much.