Ruined this beauty today. We use 91% rubbing alcohol to clean all of our electronics, and have never had an issue before. Didn’t expect it to completely take off the design. We’re currently in mourning and debating on buying another totk switch just for the backplate, unless someone knows where to buy a replacement one with this design
by alexandria3142
36 Comments
In general, keep alcohol away from anything stuck/glued/printed on. There’s no reason to use anything other than water on the outside of electronics, as long as you are careful and keeping it away from ports and buttons. Alcohol should only be used to cleaning in and around ports, buttons, and internals.
Plastic case is not electronics now, is it? Keep your rubbing alcohol to metal and contacts.
Why would you use alcohol to clean plastic? There’s no metal or anything that would call for that
nooo I’m sorry that happened 🙁 I hope you guys figure out a solution! maybe apply a skin on the back?
F
Awe what was the rubbing alcohol for though? To clean plastic?
You have saved my bacon from a terrible accident that would have happened in my future if I didn’t see this, thank you! I clean most of my controllers etc with alcohol every now and then to spruce them up a bit and I 100% would have done this at some point.
Thanks for this advice before I destroyed my switch lol 😂
Don’t feel bad, my switch fell into my laundry and got washed in the washing machine. 😭 it was one of the animal crossing ones. I was and am still devastated. I let it dry for a few weeks, plugged it in, it came on. I left it to charge and it died again and won’t come back to life. It made me sick.
maybe look online for a broken one and just buy it for the back
I feel for you, that must be painful. I hope you’ll find some way to make it look cool again. Think “[Kintsugi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi) philosophy” :
> As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[10][11] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken; it can also be understood as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting cracks and repairs as events in the life of an object, rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage.
Make it something unique and yours.
Hm. I thought it was etched on there. I will keep this in mind if I ever clean mine. Thanks for the heads up. Sorry about your system. I would 100% buy another and then sell the damaged one, maybe finish the job, and sell it as a regular.
Yeah alcohol is good for glass and metal not plastics my dude
I don’t know why people are being snippy but I use rubbing alcohol to clean a lot of my electronics also, I’ve never used it on my dock tho but now I know I shouldn’t if it has a design haha
I know they sell knockoffs versions of the case on aliexpress, you can watch comparison on yt they look identical to the original
The greatest PSA ever. You just saved so many consoles
You can buy a replacement backplate on AliExpress and switch it out yourself. I think it even comes with the kickstand so you should be good.
Well now you know OP
Nintendo UK website says to use 70% or lower alcohol.
https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-Switch/Usage/Cleaning-and-Disinfecting-Nintendo-Switch-Console-Joy-Con-controllers-and-Accessories-1847635.html
“You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”
You should probably stop alcohol on all your plastics entirely. Over time it makes them brittle and prone to cracking/breaking. And it dulls finishes as well.
It’s recommended for internal electronics uses because you don’t want the interaction from elements in water and the alcohol can break down specific residues that you may be trying to get rid of while leaving little contamination behind once it dries. Deionized water is just as effective though for cleaning.
Diluted dawn and filtered/clean water is all you really need to clean your electronics.
Well, in your case, you definitely need to clean that with rubbing alcohol now :/
Why would you use rubbing alcohol to clean it at all?
don’t clean ANY electronics with anything but a little water, if that. Microfiber cloth is pretty much all you need.
Lmfao yeah my ex did that so I bought a new shell for it
Rubbing alcohol isn’t a cleaner, especially 91%. That’s the kind of stuff used for industrial use. No wonder it would strip the paint off the console.
Edit: Apparently Nintendo does say 70% is fine. The issue is the alcohol concentration, although I still wouldn’t use it to clean surfaces. OP was trying to apply a screen protector, and Id recommend eyeglass cleaner for that.
A damp paper towel should be enough for most cleaning. Anything beyond that, use a swab to test it in a small area before spreading it over the console. Glass cleaner applied to a microfiber cloth for the screen.
lol why would anyone do this
Don’t clean plastic with alcohol
91% alcohol is way too much lmao. Especially on plastic.
Lmao
I’m not going to respond to any more comments, but essentially my fiancé got rubbing alcohol on the back of his hand when we were putting a screen protector on, and by the time we wiped it off, the design came with it. We’re going to remove the rest of the design since the switch itself is fine, and get a new back.
As far as us using alcohol to disinfect our electronics, which we rarely do besides our phones, Nintendo recommends using [70% isopropyl alcohol or less](https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-Switch/Usage/Cleaning-and-Disinfecting-Nintendo-Switch-Console-Joy-Con-controllers-and-Accessories-1847635.html). So we’re not wrong as far as that goes.
I would say this likely wouldn’t be safe for designs still, but I hope this helps people know that normally use iso on their electronics for disinfection.
And I don’t need more people asking why we did this. I explained it was a mistake. I posted this because I know that other people use alcohol to clean their electronics and this is a sucky thing to have happen
…. at least it looks really nice and clean on that side.
Yeah you used a solvent to clean something soluble, unfortunately.
The amount of people who thought this would work???
You can found TOTK backplates in aliexpress or ebay, just follow a tutorial en youtube of how dismount the Switch. The replacements usually have included the screwdriver
thank you so much for posting this 😭