[ajgriff]

One of the frustrating things about many commercial cleansers and solvents is the difficulty associated with finding out precise details of a particular product's constituents. Many manufacturer's go to some lengths to conceal such detail with labelling containing such phrases as 'a unique blend of hydrocarbons', leaving the user none the wiser. However the regulated world in which we live does mean that we have access to some information pertaining to toxic or flammable components via safety data sheets. Not perfect but it can help. Here are some examples ignoring propellants (often propane, butane or carbon dioxide):

Caig DeoxIT D Series - largely petroleum spirit with a dash of 'trade secret'.

Servisol Super 10 - largely petroleum spirit plus a little oil.

Standard WD40 - largely petroleum spirit plus a little light oil.

Carb Cleaners - usually acetone plus toluene or xylene

Brake Cleaners - either acetone or petroleum spirit (often used to be TCE ie, tricloroethylene)

White Spirit/Turps Substitute - petroleum spirit.

Please don't take this as gospel as it is the analysis of an amateur (me). One of the many fog factors here is the term 'petroleum spirit' which is often dressed up in other forms using words like 'paraffinic' and 'naptha'. What makes matters worse is there's no standard definition of petroleum spirit which is really a rather rough by-product of the oil refining process. Some, if not all, petroleum spirits (distillates) contain aromatic solvents. Toluene and xylene are also aromatic.

Another thing of course is that there is a huge array of plastic types and there will always be some which are adversely affected, especially with prolonged exposure, by certain solvents inluding all of those mentioned above. The aromatic hydrocarbons are particularly risky in this respect as is acetone to a lesser extent. In terms of plastics isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is probably one of the safest solvents for contact cleaning although it's not actuallly much of a solvent. Denatured alcohol (eg meths) is a bit better and evaporates faster than IPA.

Finally I'm not a fan of sprays generally. They are difficult to control, wasteful and the propellants used aren't environmentally friendly. For what it's worth I use meths and the mixture referred to via post #8 if some lubrication is needed.

I'm sure that the organic chemists amongst our number will find it easy to pick large holes in my analysis but I think it serves to illustrate how difficult it is for the layman to choose the right contact cleaner/lubricant.

Alan