![]() ![]() Any track lubricant has to be thin enough to be conductive and prevent hydroplaning, which results in intermittencies as you turn the pot. The vast majority of potentiometers that I'm aware of don't have any lubricant on the carbon track applied at the time of manufacture, as that would interfere with conductivity. Google "circuit board alcohol bath," alcohol is used to completely submerge circuit boards in because it's such a safe and effective cleaner. Isopropyl alcohol is the industry standard, Deoxit is trying to sell you something. Just do a bunch of Googling if you don't believe me, "electrical contact cleaner alcohol" for instance. In more sensitive engineering applications we use 99% isopropyl alcohol, but for household electronics and guitar amps 70% is absolutely fine, and that's what's used for larger electrical contacts. I'm not saying that it's a terrible product that will ruin your amp or anything, but I am saying that alcohol is all you need and all anyone uses in my professional experience. Deoxit is just a waste of money, in my opinion. In all of those industries, alcohol is used to clean electrical contacts and traces. I'm an electrical engineer and former avionics technician for the USAF, have worked in aerospace, have worked in renewables and thin film manufacturing/test, have worked for the Keck Observatory doing control system work, and now teach electrical engineering and physics. Obviously Deoxit has a marketing department and wants to sell you things. The great advantage of using alcohol to clean electronics is that it is EXTREMELY volatile, it will evaporate away completely very quickly, which means that it doesn't matter how conductive it is anyway because it will be completely gone in a few minutes. Alcohol is a polar covalent compound, but it's not very polar and is not very conductive. ![]() I clicked the above link called "Caig on alcohol," and it's misleading, in my opinion. ![]() I will just repeat that this stuff is not used in any electrical engineering company or electrical manufacturing floor that I'm aware of. 90.567274/ That guy takes it all out and disassembles the pots and switches.Īnyway, the cleaning I did get done had the 9090 working much better with no crackling :) I look forward to trying it on some 'real' speakers, though, as I think it might have been too much for my little AR TSW-110 test speakers.Deoxit has a market, sure. I thought I might get better access through the top, but the illumination box is in the way I started to remove the box, but it wasn't going to be easy, and I wasn't even sure if it would help.Ĭheck out this thread at AK. For tone controls you can pretty much forget it. Luckily, the combination volume/balance pot is accessible from one side, in between two PCBs of course hitting it from multiple angles would be preferable. Even then, PCBs (printed circuit boards) along the bottom prevent good access. The bottom is the only real way to have any access at all - the knobs and switches are all along the bottom of the faceplate. The 9090 is a real challenge for gaining access to the pots. Same exact process, just a different product. I was telling my dad about some of this work with the pots and switches, and he told me how they used some type of red oil to do the same thing back in the 50's when he worked in a radio shop as a teenager. Can't wait to get the Sansui cleaned and try it since it has a lot of crackle in the volume right now. Sounds great, although due to the lateness of the hour (neighbors) I couldn't turn the volume up very much to properly check for any lingering crackling. I got the knobs and switches done on the Rotel last night. The AK article goes to an extreme in cleaning all the jacks and inputs by sticking a mascara brush inside. Wait.are you calling me an idiot? ) I've also watched a few YouTube videos. I found that thread on AK yesterday and read the whole thing. Hmmm.I wonder how similar it is to Deoxit products? I don't know if you've been in a RS lately, but half the store is now cell phone stuff. They do have their own line of cleaner and lube. ![]() You know what I'm up against ) Radio Shack only sells the D5 anymore from what I can tell by searching. ![]()
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