The Affect of Cat Pee On RED Accessories... (You'll want to read this)

[Eric Lange]

Yeah that makes sense. It was unreal how acidic and strong it was.

Also - update.

I have decided since I really have noting else to lose at this point so I am currently ripping all the components apart and soaking them in 91% isopropyl rubbing alcohol and tediously scrubbing all the circuits with a soft tooth brush... I have no clue if this will save anything at this point, but to me, (MAYBE) saving 7,000 dollars is worth a shot

I have to admit I was kinda interested as I used to be a conservator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space museum and materials scientist and so called half arsed expert on modern materials … So I was kinda wondering what I would do if that was a conservation project.

So if you do that DO take pictures and I can probably give you some advise as you go along.



Small brushes good, do solubility tests on various surfaces as you may find other solvent blends more effective (or you may find certain materials and components get dissolved / destroyed by a particular solvent). Old dental tools very useful and even glass bristle brushes (but watch your fingers on those, wear rubber gloves) as well as several types of scalpel (different blade profiles number 11 Schwan and curved blades really useful) and good for cleaning to AND cocktail sticks with quickly rolled cotton swabs very useful too (to pick up solvent and crefuly rub or abrade a surface and then discard... Repeat many many times!) . Pin-vice also good with the dental picks. Dissecting microscope can be useful but also hand lens or magnifiers like jewelers and engravers wear can be useful to.* As long as you are patient and systematic I think you will be surprised what you can bring back. I used to do restoration jobs on the side, some of them were Electronics of various "Vintages" for various corporations.

Also depending on the electronics you might have to earth / ground yourself to not blow them up with static electricity if you hope to get something working again (shrugging shoulders).

___________________________________


* Seems your wife might be able to "Borrow" everything you need for that from her day job ;-)

 

[Brandon M Jones]

Ay caramba. Are you in your late 20s, by any chance? In any case, I'm speechless. You really don't deserve all this!

Yes, I am 27. Does this happen to everyone like some sort of passage into their 30s? haha But yeah, it has been a really rough couple of months. Not exactly sure what I am doing wrong here. I always try to be a good person and do the right thing.

 

[Brandon M Jones]

I have to admit I was kinda interested as I used to be a conservator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space museum and materials scientist and so called half arsed expert on modern materials … So I was kinda wondering what I would do if that was a conservation project.

So if you do that DO take pictures and I can probably give you some advise as you go along.



Small brushes good, do solubility tests on various surfaces as you may find other solvent blends more effective (or you may find certain materials and components get dissolved / destroyed by a particular solvent). Old dental tools very useful and even glass bristle brushes (but watch your fingers on those, wear rubber gloves) as well as several types of scalpel (different blade profiles number 11 Schwan and curved blades really useful) and good for cleaning to AND cocktail sticks with quickly rolled cotton swabs very useful too (to pick up solvent and crefuly rub or abrade a surface and then discard... Repeat many many times!) . Pin-vice also good with the dental picks. Dissecting microscope can be useful but also hand lens or magnifiers like jewelers and engravers wear can be useful to.* As long as you are patient and systematic I think you will be surprised what you can bring back. I used to do restoration jobs on the side, some of them were Electronics of various "Vintages" for various corporations.

Also depending on the electronics you might have to earth / ground yourself to not blow them up with static electricity if you hope to get something working again (shrugging shoulders).

___________________________________


* Seems your wife might be able to "Borrow" everything you need for that from her day job ;-)

Wow that's awesome! I feel as though you and I could probably talk for hours over a few beers. I absolutely love history and I really love flight, so I can imagine you have some seriously interesting stories!

I am taking a ton of pictures though. I do want to post them but I also don't want to piss Jarred and RED off and post a bunch of pictures of the internal components of their products all over the internet?! I dont know how they'd feel about it?

Definitely appreciate all the good input and advice. I probably wont even bother with the Vmount Expander. I opened it and it looked like a salt farm inside the circuitry. OR like it had been laying at the bottom of the ocean for 20 years.... That was the piece that ACTUALLY got peed on. But the top handle and some of the other less intricate things I am definitely going to try to save...

Currently I am working on the MINI-MAG sitting here at my desk reading this thread every so often and then going back to scrubbing and flushing... ugh


I attached a couple pictures of what I am dealing with so far... The blue mystery material is the corrosion that I am currently fighting to scrub off. EVERYTHING is absolutely covered in it....

 

[Brandon M Jones]

WOW. Great story. It might cost a pretty penny to fix/replace but you'll move past this and find it funny one day (when 16k is the norm and how this happened to your first RED).

Yeah, you're right man. I hope so. I am sure eventually I will laugh at it. Right now it just straight up hurts though. But thank you so much for your encouragement and kindness!

 

[Brandon M Jones]

Are you "really" sure your wife is supportive of your Red purchases.

Just saying...

...this could be some other level sabotage, like that poor bunny got from Glen Close in "Fatal Attractions".

Cause um... that's a lot of cat piss to happen in one confined area.



Just joking (I think).

Cats have this amazing ability to scent mark with finest of mist sprays, when they back their ass up to something.

I would not be suprised if both of the cats got into a scent mark fight, and wafted that shit thru the crack/seams.

And as far as I know the stuff their bodies hold for scent marking is more toxic/smelly then regular piss.

Haha nah man she is amazing and very supportive of me and my expensive career choice investments.

What I honestly think it caused it is retaliation for us not letting them sleep with us the night before we left for the beach.. We let our aussie collie puppy sleep in bed with us in stead of in her bed and I think it pissed the cats off cause that has been their domain for 5 years before we got the puppy...

Vengeful little bastards...

 

[Eric Lange]

Wow that's awesome! I feel as though you and I could probably talk for hours over a few beers. I absolutely love history and I really love flight, so I can imagine you have some seriously interesting stories!

I am taking a ton of pictures though. I do want to post them but I also don't want to piss Jarred and RED off and post a bunch of pictures of the internal components of their products all over the internet?! I dont know how they'd feel about it?

Definitely appreciate all the good input and advice. I probably wont even bother with the Vmount Expander. I opened it and it looked like a salt farm inside the circuitry. OR like it had been laying at the bottom of the ocean for 20 years.... That was the piece that ACTUALLY got peed on. But the top handle and some of the other less intricate things I am definitely going to try to save...

Currently I am working on the MINI-MAG sitting here at my desk reading this thread every so often and then going back to scrubbing and flushing... ugh


I attached a couple pictures of what I am dealing with so far... The blue mystery material is the corrosion that I am currently fighting to scrub off. EVERYTHING is absolutely covered in it....

If someone wanted to reverse engineer RED stuff they would go out and buy it and take it apart. Probably these days hackers are more meaningful and also some of the circuit diagrams and principals are known also it's more about "execution"... I think RED electronics are very high quality so they would not be inclined to want to necessarily hide what's on the inside for that reason. [That's what used to piss me off about LEICA digital cameras as the internal build quality is "Fake" / imaginary (when you tear one down) .. Lenses amazing of course. ]. RED MMag: The layout and quality of the PCB / circuit board and componentry seem to be really well designed and implemented and of a really high quality. No worries there. If you are able to restore part of your chemically trashed equipment and it boots up that would speak volumes to the quality of RED gear/electronics.

If they delete a picture it's not the end of the world.


Other things to think about... If you are using various higher grade detergents (on the congealed cat pee) be mindful of using distilled water. There's a fabulous non-ionic detergent we used to use called Symperonic NDB … One drop of that from a eye-dropper / pipette could do your dishes for about two weeks. That stuff was freaking expensive but maybe now there is a cheaper commercial readily available versions of non-ionic detergents that you could use.


Seems like you might be in with fighting chance.


Those dark blue corrosion products are really interesting.

 

[Ari Morales]

I'm wondering if homeowner's or renter's insurance would cover this?

Cat pee is no joke. Have a friend who's cat decided to mark his brand new PS3 back in the day with the wonderfully pungent aroma of cat pee and we somehow revived it after a lot of meticulous cleaning.

I hope your luck turns around soon!

P.S. I agree, Nick Watkins is the best!

 

[Michael McLaughlin]

Yeah... cats are vengeful, they serve their revenge up cold and after the fact.

In college my housemate had a cat and I never let it near my bedroom, with little stern warnings.

Came home after a long day of exhaustIng midterms, walked into my bedroom as the cat was in mid poop into one of my slippers.

In a fit of utter blind rage I stomped the floor like Thor and went to hurl my loaded backpack at it.

The thing, trailing shit from its ass, jumped toward the nightstand then to the window.

Of course the window wasn't open, it knocked itself out (also pissed itself middway) and now I had cat shit and piss all over.

When the thing came to, I said in a very low voice "we're even!", and stomped the floor to drive the point home.

It scampered out and never came in again (that I know of).

 

[Jeremy Scott]

You might have just been blacklisted from every rental house with that post.

 

[Craig Lees]

Jesus Kitty fixking christ.

Sorry for your pain but damn I hope you exponentially expelled some pain through that awesome writing of the story.

There's a male cat who thinks he's a fricking snow leopard on a David Attenborough Doc on Our garden fence most nights ATM spraying and rubbing our hedge like owns the joint and damn does it stink on a hot day.

Yet Cat Poo Coffee tastes so good?!?!?!?

C'mon RED, help Brandon out just 'cause his first post story is hilarious & the funniest thing I've heard on Reduser in a long time!

Craig Lees
UK

 

[AJ Aguirre]

Brutal... I had a roommate with cats once... they will literally pee in any box shaped item. Laundry basket, suit cases, christmas light boxes, empty boxes, you name it.

 

[Antony Newman]

My (rather basic) understanding is that after cat pee dries - the Uric Acid turns into salt - which when humidity returns will return to being uric acid (and smell) - with a 'half life' of 6 years in open air.

Uric Acid is not water soluble. You might be surprised that most cleaning produces will not break down uric acid salt crystals (even Bleach will not!)
You will need an enzyme cleaner (which breaks the uric acid down into Ammonia and Carbon dioxide as the enzyme cleaner completely dries).


Step 1 : My first action would therefore be to use cotton wool buds + enzyme cleaner to remove the Uric Acid and salt crystals. (let it DRY!).

=== what is Cat Urine made of? ===

• Urea
• Urobilin/Urobilinogin (which makes it yellow)
• Uric Acid
• Sodium
• Other electrolytes
• Creatinine
• Pheromones
• Bacteria – typically 5 different strains.

========================

Step 2 : Use a box of earbuds (cotton wool) + dip in Isopropol

AJ

 

[Craig Lees]

Mmmmm, ammonia & carbon dioxide...

Antony, your basic understanding sounds like a lot! My more basic understanding is that I can't help but shudder when I see them do the shake thing after spraying, they're so getting off on it: so horrid. Galaxies away from all those billions of cute cat vids sigh...

Craig Lees
London
UK

 

[Antony Newman]

Forgot to mention (Eric has already) - you should wear and earth strap (eg to your wrist).

Brushing (cleaning) can sometimes cause electrons to be stripped away / added.
(You might also temporarily be floating at voltage high enough to cause damage to sensitive electronics).

Ha’ppy cleaning - And good luck!

AJ

 

[B Kanegson]

Sorry to hear all this happening in a short span to one person. A lot can go wrong, so much at once...

But FWIW, and by no means a palliative - the guy who had the stroke/ aneurism and stopped breathing? His day was actually far worse than anyone else's.

At least you have your health, are young, and can recover. Not without some pain and lessons learned, but no permanent damage to your future done. The other guy, maybe not.

 

[Eric Lange]

Forgot to mention (Eric has already) - you should wear and earth strap (eg to your wrist).

Brushing (cleaning) can sometimes cause electrons to be stripped away / added.
(You might also temporarily be floating at voltage high enough to cause damage to sensitive electronics).

Ha’ppy cleaning - And good luck!

AJ

LOL your post made me do a lot of research on Cat pee... so +1 one on the enzymes. In conservation practice we rarely use enzymes (although they are in our arsenal) but more often than not we use saliva and cotton swabs for cleaning easel paintings/ oil paintings. [Enzymes in spit are good for that... ]…


When I was a conservator (archeological and later modern materials) the only cats we had were mummified Egyptian ones and as far I know no cat has ever flown a B-29.

 

[Brandon M Jones]

Sorry to hear all this happening in a short span to one person. A lot can go wrong, so much at once...

But FWIW, and by no means a palliative - the guy who had the stroke/ aneurism and stopped breathing? His day was actually far worse than anyone else's.

At least you have your health, are young, and can recover. Not without some pain and lessons learned, but no permanent damage to your future done. The other guy, maybe not.

I totally agree. That was a horrible and traumatic experience. It was shocking how quickly it happened. He had just walked into the clubhouse where I was downloading footage from the Inspire. He sat down in a recliner and was drinking water and talking to some other people who were also inside attempting to escape the heat of the racetrack. Within a minute of sitting down though he passed out and started loudly snoring. A few seconds later before anyone could even go over to attempt to "wake him up" he began vomiting and convulsing at which point I started screaming for someone to call 911. We tried vigorously to wake him at which point we realized he had stopped breathing. This all happened very very fast. I took a "Combat life saver" course in the military, but I was not familiar with the specific differences of heart attack symptoms versus a stroke or an anuerisym. So in that moment with zero resources on hand all we could do was try our best to keep his air way clear and maintain blood flow by providing CPR. I felt very helpless and wished more than anything I could have had my wife there (ER Trauma Nurse) who would have known exactly what was going on with him and could have maybe done more than I could. I don't mean to gloss over the severity or the pain of witnessing another man die right in front of me. Hearing his son screaming for us to do something to save his Dad is something I'll never forget. You are correct though, of all the ridiculous things that seem to have happened to me recently, I do still have many things to be thankful for and I am. The thing about life is that no matter how bad it seems, it can always be worse. So albeit, I am very upset about many of the things that have happened that have induced a lot of stress on me lately, I am still thankful for all the good things. My coworker actually pointed out to me today that "at least I have a RED to complain about this happening too". He's right. I think it's safe to say everyone here probably has a great life overall. We are all blessed to even have the opportunity to partake in such a high level of cinematic ability and pursue our careers with such tools as RED.

I simply shared this post and the details of the last several months of my life to try and use this forum as a bit of a therputic outlet. I appreciate you guys. But like I said. You are right, and I totally agree. It could definitely always be worse. These are all just unfortunate bumps that I have certainly learned from and will move past in time.

 

[John David Pope]

Look at it this way...

You have a non-functioning camera and a wife

I have a functioning camera

:smiley:

 

[AndreasOberg]

Tough "luck"! These things have a tendency to move in waves.
We had a rough period where harddrives were breaking left and right for no apparent reason. They were just standing on our desk being used, but still lots tons of them.

Hope things become better for you!
/Andreas

 

[Corey_O]

I have no doubt you will thrive and bounce back because you're willing to reach out when "piss its the fan"!

keep on keeping on.....and thanks for your service!