Imagine walking into his house without context and just seeing computer keys cooking on the stovetop

1990s Apple: "You can pretty much disassemble the entire thing without needing a screwdriver!" 2010s Apple: "We glue our batteries in because fuck you, that's why."

Roughly 7:00 - 2 points to be made here. Ozone breaks down into regular oxygen pretty fast, roughly half an hour or so. So if you're serious about ozone, you need to keep that fresh supply coming. Point 2: overcast day is not gonna stop UV, UV punches through cloud like it's made of nothing. Clouds will stop IR, so you won't feel the heat, but the nastiest sunburn I ever had was on an overcast day. UV does whatever it wants, clouds be damned.

A very obvious advantage that the ozone method has is that you maybe don’t have to disassemble the item to isolate the plastic parts, because you’re immersing it in a gas, not a liquid.

Hey man I hope you see this but I think I have a very easy solution to scaling the heat treatment one. I use a sous vide machine for work. simple little thing, you plug it in, submerge it in water and set the temp. and it will heat and circulate the liquid. for the container go to a restaurant supply place and grab a "lexan container" they make em all the way up to 18"x26"x12" which should hold just about anything you could want to do. the container should be around $40 and a basic sous vide should be around $100 I hope this helps and I hope you see this!!!

Not many people know this but engine cleaner/degreaser also proves ineffective for cleaning or degreasing engines.

13:50. Something to consider if you want to scale up due to the size of certain items for the heat Retrobrite technique, is to look into a sous vide portable device. Most of the 800w items have a temp range of +41 +212 Degree F or +5 +100 Degree C and all have inbuilt circulation pumps for up to approx 15L. Match that up with a large plastic container and you have yourself an awesome DIY Scaled up Heat Retrobriter EDIT: looks like quite a few people recommended this technique as well strolling through the comments

What I like about the ozone method is that in some cases you wouldn't need to disassemble the gadget, which is good because sometimes it is risky and one might break it.

Just wanted to say, every time I get a message saying you posted something new, it's the high point in my day. Keep it up, I love your channel.

Hey 8 bit guy, you could use a vacuum seal bag for the large cases, and just inflate it with the ozone

I don't know anything about old pc but I found your video impressively helpful to retrobrite my Legos, huge thanks. you got a big like.

For people with a 3d printer: putting it on the heated bed heated up to 60C this works as well. You could even make a little gcode and move the container back and forth from time to time and then some UV LEDs on top

Now I realize why they have those teeth whitener kits with the light, must be a UV light. Your channel is awesome, keep up the good work! :)

Instead of rigging hot water heater parts with a thermostat, just use a suit vide cooker(immersion circulator). Not only will it heat the liquid to an exact temperature, but it will also circulate the liquid around in the tub.

@The 8-Bit Guy Ok, tried this on a translucent plastic, buttons that were yellowed on an old Copy Machine, and I used the Hydrogen Peroxide + UV method. First, I tried a UV light (black light) and after leaving it there for 8 hours, I did not see any improvement, but rather the entire thing (on all of the buttons) appeared to be beginning to yellow (even where they had been like new). I hoped that this had been because of the lack of heat, so I moved it to the sunshine for 4 hours (here in Tucson, Arizona in 106ºF heat). This noticeably yellowed all the plastic parts! I pulled them out of the UV light. Then I heated up a pot of water on the stove until I found the 160ºF sweet spot on my stovetop's Melt setting. Then I poured out the water and replaced it with Hydrogen Peroxide. When it reached 160ºF I placed my plastic buttons into the pot. I felt like I saw some mild improvements after about 5 hours or so, and I removed the pieces, feeling like the next step was to try the Salon Care solution. But after an hour of being dried, and cooling down, my plastic parts had thrown me another curve ball! Wherever there had been yellowing on the translucent plastic, it was now non-translucent white! This is a nightmare!!!!! A NIGHTMARE!!! I realized then that none of these retrobrighting videos had been done with translucent plastic (that I knew of at least). I raised the white flag and said, "enough is enough, I'm putting this copier back together and selling it as it is." Only one problem, when I put the buttons back into the control panel, THEY HAD SHRUNK!!!! Massive shrinkage! For every Inch of original length, I lost one millimeter!!!! After hours (literally hours) of jerry-rigging, cutting, gluing, and literally praying, I have a working copy machine again! This was a $17,000 copier, now still worth thousands. And I almost ruined it... the replacement panel (they don't sell buttons separately) is $1,200, and there isn't really a second hand parts market for these. BE CAREFUL. This plastic was from around 2009, and had yellowing from sunlight exposure. DON'T TRY THIS ON TRANSLUCENT PLASTICS!!!

Thanks for doing this video, I have just got an original Atari ST with a very yellowed case, after watching this I tried some of your methods and it worked really well and the case is now back to its original colour. Living in the UK I had to wait for the ideal day and we are having a mini heatwave so today was the day.

ozone gas is fairly unstable, I don't imagine there was much ozone left after 4 hours. This technique may require leaving the generator hooked up and running. A plus side of this is it'd be easy to use a large clear garbage ecycling bag and just tape it to the hose. The output of the generator would offset any small leakage

For a big sealing bag, try one of those vacuum bags they advertise on TV, where you put clothes in and then vacuum the air out to take up less space. You can vacuum the air out, and then add ozone in if you make a small adjustment to the valve to take your ozone machine... And here in Spain we have the perfect thing for using the heat method on big things: Paella dish!! See if you can find a deep one there somewhere, I mean, there are places that cook paella in the States, so there must be dishes somewhere...

I don't know why I am watching this at 1 AM when I have to get up in the morning, but I am loving it :D.

You’ve nailed the “dad style” I’m envious and envy your white shoes. How you maintain that, this video explains you are the whitening master

every experiment needs a control. so i will use the control key.

It almost seems like some of these methods make the plastic *too* bright. What about testing them on a completely new product with grey plastic? If you can make it brighter than what it actually looks like new, the method feels kinda dicey to me...

This is awesome Dave !!! Thanks for taking the time making this video !!

How about using a UV Lamp like the ones they use for nail art? That would be more reliable/controllable than the sun. Should also work for larger items you can’ t move as easily., if it works.

For your salon cream + heat method I’m not joking - get a sous vide cooker. Not only will you be able to precisely control temperature but you’ll have an amazing culinary tool. Throw your part in a plastic bag, vac seal or use the immersion method to get the air out, and you’ll have an amazing and repeatable method to retrobrite parts of pretty much any size.

Why not use a large fish aquarium. There are people on Craiglist begging to give them away. ;-)

Fantastic video comparison 8BG, thanks, I've a Sun Ultra 10 incoming for the reconditioning treatment soon, this video helped massively in the decision on how to clean up the (inevitably yellowed) plastics! Thanks!

Honestly, I'm amazed that it's even possible to reverse the yellowing at all. I'm blown away that you were able to completely restore the #2 key. Pretty darned cool! Actually, I may be even more amazed that UV can help reverse the yellowing, given that UV is (as far as I know) a major factor CAUSING the yellowing in the first place.

Here's an idea: Use a sous vide circulator for heating the water!

I really like the idea of using ozone and heat, you'd just need some airtight container with a viewing window, and you could reliably retrobrite anything without the sun, you might even be able to do it without disassembling anything

This is THE BEST vid I have seen testing various methods for yellowing plastic - thank you so much, you are awesome!!!! :)

This video wins my Video-of-the-Decade award, awesome stuff, thanks!

It's just me or the "2" keycap (with heat) not only cleaned, but kinda desaturated the original color? it looks way too white, isn't it supposed to be grayish like the 5 keycap (40% Peroxide)?

Dear Guy. You are correct that it is not needed to submerge or rub substance on plastics at all if the container you use is closed off. Heat creates Hydrogen Peroxide vapor in the air of the enclosed container. UV irradiation of the Hydrogen Peroxide creates Hydroxyl Radicals (·OH) (2.8V). And the UV irradiation of the air inside the container creates Ozon gas (O3) (2.07V). Both of these are highly reactive noncorosive oxidizing agents. Basically how some medical devices are disinfected. Best of luck.

I saw your video when I was a senior year of high school. And now! I came back to see again for restoring the consoles just make sure I can do it well. I should start to restore the console that works completely fine and sell as much more price than before. Not going to sell an overpriced item but well enough to make people satisfied and enough price. I have been planning to restore some console or some games that lost the glories back in the day. And now, I find another way to restore old things.

oh that video is a masterpiece i really appreciate the effort you put in testing all of those methods

So what have we learnt? Buy black computers

You could use sous vide for the heat method and it can be easily scaled up Sous vide is a method of cooking that uses precise water temperature and there are portable units that you can place in a tank of any size

I know I’m super late, but a way you might be able to scale the Peroxide+heat method is by using a soul vide immersion circulator (or multiple) in a large tub. They’re designed to heat water to between 140 and 180, iirc, and keep it at that temperature for extended periods.

Retro brite during a solar eclipse with an offering of blood? Do you think that will affect the performance any?

I'm glad you did this experiment it's nice to see how you utilize what you learned in your more current videos.

just subscribed based on a friend telling me the intro music was a banger, which was absolutely true

this channel suddenly becoming a fun chemistry class...love this video.very informative

Top VIdeo. I'm a hobby chemist and i know a lot of things. Your results put in work mode. THANKS for it.

Engine degreaser: "that looks nasty" LOL! What about a transparent crate so it gets +/- equal sunlight? Excellent project!

About ozone, you should put the generator on and leave it in the bag, cause ozone is very unstable and will react or fall apart to oxygen relatively quick. You also should perform it outside to get rid of leakage.

Man, your experiment about this subject os just fantastic!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I got 20v/o salón cream and after an hour in very cloudy and rainy day, the difference was already striking (live in central america, the sun is brutal). I got some streaking, so tonight I got 40v/o salón cream and will try some more RetroBrite goodness tomorrow. Thanks again.

This whole time I could've been using my mom's hair products to restore plastic. WOW. When using developer normally, the heat from a person's head is usually enough to make it work.

Wait.... Apple made a product that was easy to disassemble? Wow... That blew my mind!

I appreciate all the work you put into this!

I used the salon care products to whiten my old mac. I heated the water to about 120-130 submerged the case fully in the water and set in the sun for about 3.5 hrs they were nice and white! I used a combo of 20 and 40 2 gallons worth. Thanks for the video!

What a great episode! For the large bag, there are large zip lock bags meant for clothing that should work. They look and work just like any other zip lock bag, but are huge. For the temperature control, you may want to look at a clip-on immersion circulator like the ones people use for cooking. I don't know if the parts would be affected by the hydrogen peroxide, but you would be able to get very precise control of the temperature at the temperatures you're looking at. I use the Nomiku myself, but it's pricy. You may want to look at the Anova Precision as it's less expensive. Then your container can just be a small plastic tub. I hope these tips help and thanks for all the great content!

Around here, dollar tree has large bags that seal. They are marketed as space bags, but they don't have a vacuum attachment, they are just large ziplock style bags

Great video as always! Im in the middle of a restoring process (Schneider / Amstrad CPC 464, german Version with grey-ish keys instead the green and red ones, turned completely brown) and that informations you provide helped me out a lot, no sun here right now and i want the process of retrobrighting to finish ASAP before my gotek stuff arrives :) ill gonna use the salon cream and "boil" the stuff up with the keys massaged into cream and wrapped into plastic foil and inside a bag. Thanks again! Merry Christmas to you and your family! Greetings from Germany!

This is the best video I can recommend anyone who is looking at retrobriting.

is it just me or do i wish that david released more videos? i always rewatch his videos like 5 times each and i still enjoy them. Imagine if he had a daily upload schedule...

And here I thought "Retrobrite" was the brand name of a plastic restorer and not a process. Shows what I don't know.

Great video, man, very thorough and yet to the point.

Respect for adding the temperatures as Celsius as well!

You keep saying about the length of your videos being too long.. you said it in this video and you've said it in many of your other amazing videos... Why are you worried about the amount of time... I can tell you now, the people that watch your videos love how long they are and really won't mind them being longer. We like the way you show us how you do things. Its always interesting to watch a project you're working on. Please, please, please stop worrying about the timing or length.

7:07 thats very smart :) "When inhaled, ozone can damage the lungs. Relatively low amounts of ozone can cause chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath and, throat irritation. It may also worsen chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma as well as compromise the ability of the body to fight respiratory infections."

The Greatest experiment I've ever seen. You inspired me.

Thank you! I very much appreciate the method you used and comparisons.

Im in kansas so we are geting the full eclipse. And school got canceled

What about a Sous Vide immersion circulator? They're relatively inexpensive, keep constant temperature, and move the water around in your container so you don't need a large burner.

Sou Vide cooker on any container. 160 degrees sustainable. Containers for all sizes and models are already made. You are welcome my guy, makes life super easy. Since this video these devices have come to market at sub 200 dollars. Love your videos!

Congrats on such a thorough test. I now know everything about retrobriting plastics.

I just wanted to say that I really love this channel! such great content! thanks!

I hope you are safe considering the weather in your area!

Thank you!!!! I have put away one of my childhood fav toy hoping to restore it to its former glory! now I can! Thank you! Thank you!!

Nice in depth explanation of how this is done. It can be quite expensive for peroxide liquid, you can get the same effect from hair dressing peroxide cream at a 3rd of the price. This is only because of the volume you need to fill the box above the plastics, where as cream can be applied to the item directly and spread.

Pretty cool that the numbers don't come off with all those chemicals lol

Other equipment ideas: Ultrasonic parts cleaner with heat. I _think_ some regular parts cleaners (no ultrasonics) might have heat too. Or a cheap *food dehydrator* does lower temps well.

I'm going to try doing some sous vide retrobrighting. Glad to see the heat trick! I have an old Coleman cooler that I made into my sous vide rig. I used a large hole cutting cup bit centered on one of the cup holder indentations and cut a hole exactly the size of the sous vide immersion unit so it's a snug fit to keep evaporation down. I filled the lid with expansion foam for increased insulation since coolers keep cold air in with insulated sides and bottom, but the lid is typically hollow plastic. Since heat rises, that lid needed help to keep the heat from rising out. A sous vide cooker will give you the precise temperature control you need and uses pretty lean power to keep it warm. I don't know how the immersion warmer will react to hydrogen peroxide. My Anova one is all metal on the underwater part. I'm sure it's all stainless steel since it lives under water, but would hate to pull it out and having it all rusted. When I do it, I'll probably float a plastic container in the cooler or put some objects in the water to give the tub something to stand on and then put the H2O2 in the boat with the plastic parts and close the lid. I may make a new, even bigger sous vide cooler just for retrobritening.

This is so incredibly helpful. Thank you! I'm going to try this for myself on my extremely yellowed joe colombo "boby" trolley. It's going to be tricky because that thing is much bigger than a computer case.

Should be able to get an immersion heater. They're often used in brewing alcohol at home.

A soux vide might be ideal for heating the liquid. they just clip to a variety of pots and maintain a liquid at a very exact temperature

Just got today my Macintosh Classic II, I will start working and restoring using your technical knowledge. Wish me luck.

Hello. I'm a professor of chemistry and industrial chemist in Brazil. I watched the video, excellent information. Subscribed and like!

try putting the ozone tube in a tank of distilled water maybe with an air stone on the tube, it might force more oxygen in the water and you might not need the peroxide then apply heat and or UV

The Ziploc vacuum bags would be perfect for this, and you can get them at Walmart!

Great video, very cool. I am going to give this a try on some yellowed jacuzzi spray ports, fingers crossed, awesome video!

Hi 8-Bit Guy! I follow your videos with great interest, congratulations! They are always well made, of excellent quality and explained in the best possible way! Regarding the video regarding retrobrighting, I have followed all the phases with interest. It is the first video I see, which was done with intelligence and with experiments on a scientific method. I needed to test one of these methods, on my Amiga mouse. While I was looking for a way to build a container and cover it inside with foil, it occurred to me that I could use the ultrasonic cleaner! Let's analyze the pros and cons. Pros: - The walls are already made of reflective metal Inside there is already a heater - You can precisely set the heating temperature - You can add liquids without danger that they will come out - You can close the lid keeping everything quite sealed - It is possible to activate the ultrasonic function that moves the water inside it (I don't know if this can help in the process) Cons: - I don't know if there are a large model, but mine being quite small (the capacity is about two liters), and therefore it can be fine on small pieces to be treated, such as the keyboard keys or a mouse - The mine can reach a maximum of 40/50 °C of temperature but I think there are models that can reach higher temperatures - The closure cap is not transparent, so if you want to use a UV source you have to self-build a transparent lid or use a transparent film I will do some tests myself and let you know the results. I hope this can help. With gratitude. Eddy

Wow! Thanks! I think I actually like the ozone idea the most, with a garment storage vacuum bag for large items. Because this way would actually be safe to do the entire item at once without removing the interior parts. I mean, sure, crack that puppy open and suck out the dust, reseat the cables, etc. anyway. But once it's clean on the inside, reassemble and retrobrite. Seems like a win to me with no risk of residual moisture lurking or adding to any oxidation on a shield.

Excellent report! I love the empirical data approach- so few people understand that concept. I was wondering though- could you use a crock pot?? Even heat for 4 to 8 hours, low wattage too.

Totally love your shirt David! Very Cool!

Was looking for a way to restore some plastic pieces on a recycled refrigerator for my garage and VOI LAAAAAAA ! Gave me some ideas for some old Mac stuff I have laying around. 🤘🏽🤓 THANKS ! I use dishwasher gel for cleaning in the bathroom; especially for refreshing the shower insert. Typically works well on plastics, tile floors and grout lines, as well as toilets and sinks. Need to try on the old 💻 pieces

I know I'm late to the party here... i mean, I watched this a long time ago... but I just saw a very interesting way to do retrobriting that didn't use sunlight... What the guy did: He mixed hydrogen peroxide with gelatine to make a peroxide "paint"/gel and painted it on the discoloured parts, that he then wrapped them in plastic wrap and then into plastic bags... so far... pretty normal-ish... but then what he did, was he put the parts into a box lined with aluminium foil that was ALSO lined with a mass load of UV LED strips and sealed the box with the lid (Also foil covered) and the results were actually very impressive... The moment I saw it, I immediately thought of this video and thought i'd mention it.

8 bit guy, i went to the total eclipse today . IT WAS COOL!!!!!!

This is the First time I have actually used one of your vids for a purpose

This vid is extremely helpful for restoring some of my yellowed GI Joe toys from the eighties, especially the conning tower of my aircraft carrier. The sections are large, though. I’ll need to hunt down some large containers.

I love watching these videos but it makes me kinda mad. Back when I still used a crt monitor it got almost as brown as your mac and I tried everything to make it look better but no cleaning product worked. I was young and had no idea retrovrighting was a thing until I found your channel a year or two ago... thing is, my mom has a salon and we have a whole stock of 40 volume preoxide. The irony

Dont use ozone. O3 is an oxidizer and makes plastics brittle. It will also break down rubber products.

Appreciate that you tried different variables for us

dang dude, I actually happened to be lucky enough to see the eclipse fully as I was in Oregon visiting family, almost forgot about it until I saw this video!

Dude, that experiment was awesome. I'm a chemistry student, and I think that Oxygen is the key in this process. Yeah, you would say: "Oxygen, but there is in the air, no way". But they are two types of Oxygen with different properties. Actually your process uses H2O2 with UV ligth, and that almost always it's called H2O2 decomposition. With the Ozone, happens a similar thing, O3 it's a unstable molecule (like H2O2), it doesn't like that shape and becomes O2 and O: reactive O2 and a free O wich will attach to another O3 to produce O2. It's always awesome found people like you, that makes science in a pragmatic and useful way. Also, you should try with a few screws to prove if my hypotesis is true or not (well I think that indeed oxygen will be produced, so that doesn't make any difference). But the possibles compounds that make that should be O2 or H2. Take care with metal things, like iron or copper. Aluminium oxyde doesn't matter at all (it's a protective layer). Always use gloves with chemicals. Greets :D

If you need a large bag for the ozone technique, try using a vacuum storage bag (the kind that you can use a vacuum cleaner with).

Subscribed because of this very thorough and informative video

Aquarium tank and a sous vide machine...or multiple aquarium heaters and an empty external aquarium filter to circulate the heat. (these hang on the edge of the tank and have a pump that draws the liquid out of the bottom of the tank into a box, which then spills it back into the tank, over the top edge). You might even be able to attach a lighted aquarium hood, fitted with a UV light to really speed things up. If you decide to go that far, I would probably either paint the external glass on the tank or wrap it with something to keep the light in. The nice thing about aquarium tanks is that they are available in many sizes, and you may be able to buy what you need (tank, heaters, external filter, light hood, and all), 2nd hand, from someone that is moving and not taking their fish with them, and is desperate to get rid of all the equipment.