Batboard

Hi all!

All of you for certain know about problems with some rubber parts in Motorola parts and accessories. The problem consists fast ageing of rubber - it becomes covered by white thin coat/bloom, micro cracks, and as a result becomes fragile :(

I have personally faced this problem with following accessories:

- Saber helical antennas on VHF;
- Saber PSM;
- MTP700 RSM (manufactured only about 4 years ago!);
- PTT boot on MX300;
- RKN4035D Test and Programming Cable for JEDI;
- And also on some other.

Today I have received New In Box M/A-COM RSM for Jaguar 7100. The twisted cord of this microphone also is covered by strong white thin coat/bloom :(

Questions:

Whether what methods of struggle against this problem are? Whether there are means for preventive of this problem? Whether there are means for a softening of affected rubber and removal of a white thin coat/bloom? How to slow down this process? Maybe there are any special preparations or natural substances which can help with it? And etc...

Any help will appreciated!

the white film you describe is out gassing, somewhat normal, depends also on the enviornment it is used in. Hot and dry will hasten deterioration than cooler moist atmospheres.

I too noticed the dry rot especially of antennas. I have 800 antennas that are four or five years old that are cracking and peeling, yet other non-Motorola radios such as my Kenwood TK-340 which is close to 18 years old still have the original antenna and it is new condition.
Must be something in the molding process that Motorola uses.

MTS2000des wrote:the white film you describe is out gassing

I am not sure what you mean...

somewhat normal, depends also on the enviornment it is used in. Hot and dry will hasten deterioration than cooler moist atmospheres.

All described items 100% New In Box, never used. They were kept in original packing in normal conditions.

Wikipedia is your friend...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgassing

MTS2000des wrote:Wikipedia is your friend... 8)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgassing

It can be outgassing or something else, but my concept isn't resolved :(

My department recently assigned me the task of reprogramming about 15 or so MT1000s and P200s - of which all of the public safety mics antennas have that problem, as do the knobs on the radios. None have broken yet, but you can obviously feel that they're getting weak. The PTT buttons on the mics and radios appear to be fine.

Rayjk110 wrote:My department recently assigned me the task of reprogramming about 15 or so MT1000s and P200s - of which all of the public safety mics antennas have that problem, as do the knobs on the radios. None have broken yet, but you can obviously feel that they're getting weak. The PTT buttons on the mics and radios appear to be fine.

Once I have bought MX300R with PSM. All rubber on them has turned in chewing gum, and plastic peel off layers as a skin

By the way, I never faced this problem at Kenwood radios and accessories. It also concerns old radios, which more than 15 years.

I bought a NOS saber PSM once I took a closer look at it the strain reliefs and the antenna boot fell apart. Other than that it works fine..

Hi all
I live in the United Kingdom, and all the motorola equipment we use here doesn't seem to show signs of the rubber going funny but my complaint with motorola parts is that things like replacement model number stickers to go on the housings are not pre-cut properly!!!
Rubber keypad membranes don't fit the housings properly!!!
All very simple things to get right, but it seems they never do!

Working in a service department i get many radios (GP340/GP360/GP380/GP680 GP344/GP388) that have got runover by forklift trucks or have been dropped and the plastic housings damaged, so we replace them in-house. The fun begins putting the radios into the housings and adding the housing sub-parts...
We have problems with keypad rubber membranes not sitting properly behind the front of the housing resulting in the buttons not pertruding through the plastic cutouts enough.
Problems with sticking the model number stickers onto housings as they are too long but at the same time 3mm too narrow for the recessed area they are meant to fit into.
I could go on and on...

I can only assume that a lot of these low-value spare parts are made by other companies / factories.
Some must be supplied from a different factory to the one that produces for the radio assembly line, because a new radio out of the box has better quality parts used on it than the ones we buy separate!!!

Come on Motorola - just sell us the proper quality subparts that you use on your production lines or at least make sure they fit properly!!!

HA!

I have had the same problem, so I've been using a bottle of Simoniz rubber protectant spray. All you need to do is put it on the pieces for a minute or two and wipe it off. I did this to several antennas and saber knobs about four months ago, and the white coating still did not return.(And best of all, the previously cracked saber knobs didnt worsen, and the white went away!) It seems as if you put this stuff on before the plastic gets too bad or too brittle, it should help to preserve it.

If the bottle I'm looking at now is the one I actually used four months ago (I think it was ), it says that it "Prevents fading, Drying, Cracking," and it does seem to work. You should be able to find it in the automotive section in several stores.

Give it a try, I'm curious to see how well it works for everybody else.

I've been dabbing mine with a toothbrush dabbed in ArmorAll and it seems to help. These are the one's I've had trouble with:
Genesis and Saber knobs (PTT and acc'y. buttons no problem) SP50 accessory connector boots (knobs, PTT and option buttons no problem). GP300/P110 no problems. Jedi power knobs get a little white but not brittle and the white indicator line on the channel knob of the HT1000 all turn yellow on AN, BN radios. Then there were a few dozen Genesis PSM's, stored in a non A/C utility building, all of the strain reliefs turned to goo, all other parts of these PSM's held up OK. So from my end looks like specific parts of specific radios. None of my mobiles have shown any of these problems.

motosynth947 wrote:I have had the same problem, so I've been using a bottle of Simoniz rubber protectant spray. All you need to do is put it on the pieces for a minute or two and wipe it off. I did this to several antennas and saber knobs about four months ago, and the white coating still did not return.(And best of all, the previously cracked saber knobs didnt worsen, and the white went away!) It seems as if you put this stuff on before the plastic gets too bad or too brittle, it should help to preserve it.

If the bottle I'm looking at now is the one I actually used four months ago (I think it was ), it says that it "Prevents fading, Drying, Cracking," and it does seem to work. You should be able to find it in the automotive section in several stores.

Give it a try, I'm curious to see how well it works for everybody else.

Interesting info...

You mean Simoniz S5 UV Protectant or other Simoniz product?

RadioSouth wrote:I've been dabbing mine with a toothbrush dabbed in ArmorAll and it seems to help. These are the one's I've had trouble with:
Genesis and Saber knobs (PTT and acc'y. buttons no problem) SP50 accessory connector boots (knobs, PTT and option buttons no problem). GP300/P110 no problems. Jedi power knobs get a little white but not brittle and the white indicator line on the channel knob of the HT1000 all turn yellow on AN, BN radios. Then there were a few dozen Genesis PSM's, stored in a non A/C utility building, all of the strain reliefs turned to goo, all other parts of the PSM's held up OK.

Which product from Armor All?

I've been using that classic armor all protectant that comes in the pump bottle, that stuff that brings back the luster to dashboards,etc. Seems to work well on vinyl, plastic.

Motofan: Yep, that looks like the stuff!

motosynth947 wrote:Motofan: Yep, that looks like the stuff!

Ok, thank you!

It`s pretty "funny": 20 years old cheapo amateur handhelds are still looking like new, but i can almost watch my Motorola collection deorientating (at least knobs, PTT-covers, antennas). Even the much harder plastic knobs of Astro portables are beginning. It really sucks....

But don`t confuse the white outgasing stuff with talkum powder, which can be often found on new rubber parts, coiled cords, aso.

Keygun

Keygun wrote:It`s pretty "funny": 20 years old cheapo amateur handhelds are still looking like new, but i can almost watch my Motorola collection deorientating (at least knobs, PTT-covers, antennas). Even the much harder plastic knobs of Astro portables are beginning. It really sucks....

But don`t confuse the white outgasing stuff with talkum powder, which can be often found on new rubber parts, coiled cords, aso.

Keygun

Probably you had in view talcum.

Never saw it on cords & etc. although held in hands hundreds NIB Moto accessories.

Yes, it was talcum powder.

I have several new Jedi-handmikes, some keypad-mikes
for renaissance mobiles, all with a coiled rubber cord
and all came with talcum powder covered cables.

I guess the rotting plastic stuff is Motos lession how to
create an never ending market for replacement parts.

Unless you want your radios to look like a result of
dumpster-diving and to keep it fully operational, you
have to pay and pay and pay.

Keygun

Anybody know, rubber on fresh RKN4035D cables (ordered at Moto in this 2008-2009 years) also have 'outgassing' problem? Or it's attribute only of old ones (I mean cables what's have been stored for a many years)?

What you haven't figured out yet is that you can't pay more for a Motorola part and expect it to last. This is
just part of the plan for the company to make more money. The faster a part fades away, the faster the
customer is going to ask for a replacement.

Why do you think that the smart agencies have switched from buying Motorola, to some of the other companies.
Show me a radio that has been made in the last 5 to 10 years from Motorola that was made to last. Show me
a knob, show me a speaker mic that will last from Motorola.

I like the older radios. They stand up and the parts last. Look at the Micor radios. Look at the Spectra
series radios. Other than the caps going bad, those radios are still work horses. They are still going strong.
Many of these radios are older than the new techs servicing them.

Jim

The plasticising agents used in most of these components to make them flexible sometimes leach out and react with other polymers in the vicinity. The Expo volume knob comes to mind. As was mentioned before this is the "peeling off like layers of skin" or "gooey mess" effect. I'm not sure that anything can really be done about this. The evil already resides within. These agents are all around us, and in many, many plastic products.

Why does the line turn yellow on Jedi series but the volume knob stays white? I've always wondered that.
I also know what you mean about the rubber dry rotting. Older antennas seem to start cracking after a while and get brittle and the rubber falls off in rings

It's been quite a while. Anyone find anything that they think works ? (dessicant, zcorr bag, etc) Have about 20 Jedi's in my file cabinet with the knobs going bad, bought a bag of new one's and would like to keep them viable when the one's on the radios fall apart.

I can't count the number of Saber volume/channel knobs I've had to "superglue" together because of this aging/cracking process.
A couple of Moto DTRs I bought several years ago on a whim, did almost nothing but sit there on a shelf (in 75 degree air conditioning) for those years. And the "outgassing" or buildup of white junk happened to them as well. Also an antenna from a Uniden scanner I bought in '08. When I pulled it out of a box in which it was stored, just a couple weeks ago, it began breaking apart like thin peanut brittle.

With the DTRs, my simple solution was to use a toothbrush, along with a small amount of some light, household oil, and gently scrub away the buildup. Then rub/blot away any excess oil with a dry cloth. Doesn't prevent the process but seems to at least slow it down. Someone also suggested to me to use Pledge (the furniture polish) instead of oil because, supposedly, it contains the elements that rubbers and plastics need. Haven't tried it yet but probably will in the future.

We used to Pledge the plastic and fiberglass on our Police bikes for years. Works great and covers a lot of scratches...YMMV