Removing sticky hand held area grey stuff from CAB2

I just put blue masking tape over it.  Sounds like you found a good way though!

Gunrunner John said he removed it with a solvent. I don't remember what, but Isopropanol 90% is reletively safe for most things. I would not get sloppy with it on the display area and buttons though. Just a dampened cloth, turned often, and lots of rubbing. I finished up with a soft brush to get some little crumbs out of the grooves.

I used denatured alcohol and a plastic scraper to remove it from all of mine. It’s hard plastic underneath 

I just kept rubbing it and it all came off.

that was several years ago and it has not come back.

cjack posted:

Gunrunner John said he removed it with a solvent. I don't remember what, but Isopropanol 90% is reletively safe for most things. I would not get sloppy with it on the display area and buttons though. Just a dampened cloth, turned often, and lots of rubbing. I finished up with a soft brush to get some little crumbs out of the grooves.

I had this exact problem.  The final verdict was Isopropyl 90% rather than denatured.  "More Human Friendly" was the comment.

gloofoff is best and easiest and will not damage plastics and will take all the sticky glues off very easy. I would highly recommend it!

Alan

Alan, it's not glue, it's the non-slip coating that they applied to the Legacy CAB2, it deteriorates after a couple of years and gets sticky.  A bunch of people have removed it using Isopropyl Alcohol, including me, with no issues.

After it degrades, it’s non slip qualities get more aggressive 

Since the CAB2 is fairly fragile and most likely will break if it hits the floor, the coating is cleverly designed to make the remote stick to your hand!

I dislike how some of the foam and coatings get sticky and even melt in the case of foam. Had a camera case do that once.

Another not related issue that I am reminded of was when we stored ICs in that black foam decades ago, after a couple years the pins on the IC were all eaten away. Some kind of corrosion. Haven't seen that lately.

Yep, whatever they were putting in that black foam was not good for the tin coating of the IC leadframes!

This is really interesting, I have 2 Cab2's which were part of the original release!  Neither one has or had that problem !!!!???

Fredstrains

I have 2 from the early runs. One is sticky, one not. 

WD-40 works well to remove adhesives from plastic.

MartyE posted:

I have 2 from the early runs. One is sticky, one not. 

I had one of the original 1.0 models, it got just as sticky as the two newer ones.  They all got the alcohol treatment, now they're real slippery.

RSJB18 posted:

WD-40 works well to remove adhesives from plastic.

A VERY versatile product, for sure. Ranks among one of the most useful around my home.

Both my Cab-2s were bought after I ordered the VL BB, 1 a year after the other.  Neither has gotten sticky.  I wonder if it's a combination of the temp and humidity of the environment and chemistry of and time spent in the user's hand.  I'll admit mine aren't used a lot, nor do I keep them in my hand - I have a tendency to get the train moving and then to put the remote down.  Plus half my command locomotives are TMCC and I prefer using the Cab-1 to run those. That may change once my layout is done and I have a switching yard.  My remotes also spend most of the time in very dry air and above 80 F (AZ, it's a dry heat.).

I don't think the deteriation of the coating is the fault of useage or no useage. I've seen this kind of decomposing of foam and coatings occur to items that were in good storage.

Matt Makens posted:

After it degrades, it’s non slip qualities get more aggressive 

That's hilarious!

I've had to do the same thing to all my Verizon TV Remotes, they use the same crappy coating, and they get sticky as well!

I've had several go sticky as well.  Samething uses the denatured alochol and rubbed it off.

Jim

cjack posted:

I dislike how some of the foam and coatings get sticky and even melt in the case of foam. Had a camera case do that once.

Another not related issue that I am reminded of was when we stored ICs in that black foam decades ago, after a couple years the pins on the IC were all eaten away. Some kind of corrosion. Haven't seen that lately.

On the black foam issue, I found some chips in one of my parts drawers the other day, a drawer that NEVER sees sunlight (no uv rays), but the foam had totally disintegrated after only ten or twenty years - go figure!

It's clearly not UV that kills the stuff because I've seen the same thing.