After using all of the most expensive pot and contact cleaners, I have found that the most effective cleaner, (as long as it is safe to use on the plastics involved,) is simple generic WD-40. I once spent 20 minutes trying all sorts of different expensive cleaners, then working the contacts on a noisy old Tek scope pot over and over, with zero results. Then my boss walked in and asked me what the problem was. I told him. He picked up a can of WD-40, hit the pot with the tiniest squirt of WD, and the pot became instantly silent. So I try the expensive cleaners first, but as a last resort I reach for the WD-40. Once it's clean I then use the appropriate cleaner/lubricant to rinse off the WD-40.
As far as lubricating screws, bolts and non conductive slides, I have always used a bike chain lubricant called White Lightning. It is wax based and dries shortly after application. Thus it doesn’t transfer to your hands or clothing, doesn’t attract dust or grit, staves off rust and keeps on lubricating! I use it when assembling anything and especially on new tools with screw drive adjustments, pivots or sliding parts.
Thank you for the video i ave a vintage cb radio i bought new in 1975 . Hasnt been used in 40 years now the cannel selector is stuck .So from your video deoxit d5 is the one to apply to te switch
Hello Andrew. F is for carbon and plastic tracks. D is for metal contacts. To be safe, I would use the F as it will still do the job but won't hurt at all. If the switch doesn't ove easily, please take it to a radio or tv repair shop.
You can get the same results cleaning your potentiometers with some CRC QD Electronic Cleaner. You can pick it up at walmart for like 5 dollars for an 11oz can. Nothing against Deoxit. I've used it and it's great stuff. Deoxit cost about 15-20 dollars a can. QD Electronic Cleaner is 5 dollars. I've used it for years with no issues.
Hello John. I've not tried QD so can't comment. If you have shown it to be good, that's good enough for me. The thing with vintage amps is customers like to see a nice brand name and commercially, the small amounts used don't impact on the cost of the job. I use Caig because I like it, not because of the name but it does reassure customers.
Clean with isoprop then spray with CRC226 electronic lubricant for most switches and pots...unless on high current switches which can promote arcing..😊😊
Thank you so much for this extremely thorough video. Caig's website doesn't even list most of this information. Question: can I use DeOxit FN5 instead of Deoxit F5 for my plastic slider switches? Is the only difference between these two sprays that one is non-flammable?
This video was very helpful thank you so much! I just bought The deoxit d5 for my pedals, xlr input outputs and guitar pots. I realized that I have to use the deoxit fader for my bass and guitar pots and switches. I would also like to clean my Vox ac15 tubes as well, would you recommend the d5 or f5 for this type of job? Thanks once more!
WD40 will leave a crusty residue on metal parts such as guitar bridges and hardware. Its often a good metal cleaner but needs to be thoroughly wiped off afterwards, preferably with alcohol. Further muddying the waters, WD40 is now manufacturing and promoting a range of different products, some of which are being marketed as switch cleaners and potentiometer cleaners/lubricants. I haven't tried any of these and I don't know how effective or safe they are for electronics work. Caveat emptor applies! As for three-in-one oil, ordinary 3 and 1 oil is *designed to polymerize and form a skin* that functions as an oxygen and moisture barrier. It's great for wiping down your wrenches before you put them in the toolbox, to prevent them from rusting, but it's not really something that you want to use in any type of electronics work. 3 and 1 does make a special oil for motor bearings that doesn't polymerize, and that would probably be better for lubricating the tuning machines on your guitars and so on. I've been using Mobil One synthetic motor oil as a general moving-metal lubricant for years, and I find it works quite well.
Hello good'un, again :-) I've never found WD40 to be crusty. I find that if its applied then wiped off with a cloth, it leaves a moisture repellent barrier, as it should. I do look at the other WD products in the video and say where and where not to use them. Judging by your handle can I guess that you're Brit or maybe Oz? Or Kernow?
@@tubentruss9628 , I am American, not British. My RU-vid "nom de plume", or nom de 'Net perhaps, actually comes from something that Muddy Waters once said. Anyway some years ago I tried using WD40WD40 to clean and protect a chassie that had some corrosion on it not it and it did leave some kind of crusty residue a few weeks later. It's possible that that is something that it actually pulled from the plating of the chassie chassie because since then I have seen one protein have seen one particularly knowledgeable guitar amp guy use it to clean the chassis of Fender amps and so on. I would however strongly advise against using it to clean potentiometers. Ordinary WD40 is really not designed for that. I have been repairing audio electronics for over 50 years including almost 20 years as a full time bench Tech so I do have some experience in the field. I mostly work on old Hifi stereo equipment, But I have prepared many tube guitarians as well, and especially on the stereo equipment I often find myself taking apart switches and controls to clean and Polish the contacts because merely spraying them just won't remove enough of the oxidation to make them work reliably for any length of time. Slide faders are a particular worst case scenario and I never spray them directly with anything. I have a special technique whereby I can sometimes clean them without removing them from the equipment but I won't share my proprietary technique. In many cases however I end up removing and disassembling slide faders because there's no other way to really clean them properly and then relube them afterwards. One of these days I'll have to try to post some technical videos on RU-vid but I am a complete newbie at that and I am not very good with software programs or digital equipment......
Oxidized carbon tracks? You need to brush up on chemistry! Carbon plus oxygen = CO or CO2, which are *gasses*, not solid oxides. If the carbon layer on a potentiometer is intermittent, it's probably due to it having become coated with a gummy mix of dust and dried up lubricant. Potentiometers made with conductive, carbon-impregnated plastic tracks are different from pots with actual carbon tracks, and are likely to degrade somewhat differently than pure carbon tracks because plastics are hydrocarbons, typically a petroleum product, and petroleum products do indeed oxidize (which is why they can burn). Often the intermittent action of a potentiometer is due more to the metal slip-rings or "commutators" that make the connection for the moving wiper than from the interface between the finger of the wiper and the carbon or conductive-plastic track. Unfortunately, a product that removes tarnish and oxidation from the metal parts of the pot might also damage the carbon carbon or conductive plastic layer. And then there is the problem of flushing lubricant out of the pot, or the possibility that the shaft of the potentiometer uses one type of lubricant (a honey-like silicone perhaps on modern pots) while the the conductive carbon track might be coated with a different, much thinner type of lubricant. Note that a product formulated to remove oxide from metal contacts might not have much of a cleaning effect on degraded conductive plastic potentiometers, or vice versa; a product designed to clean the carbon tracks might not do much to improve the metal-to-metal conductivity. One universal truth I have found in 50 years of electronics work is that aerosol spray cans of contact cleaner suck! All of them deliver way way too much solvent, cleaner or lubricant. Regardless of what type of product yof product you were using it is best to deliver it exactly where you want it with a syringe and use the tiniest amount possible rather than flooding the switch bottle control with with a large amount of fluid. Another universal truth I've discovered is that manufacturer's lie. I have seen brands of electronics cleaner that proudly proclaim 1) "Cleans and lubricates!" and 2) "Leaves no residue! ". Obviously both of these things cannot be simultaneously true. And as for "plastic safe", although the product might not damage the Tolex-covered wood cabinet (Tolex is pretty rugged stuff anyway) or the faceplate of a Marshall "plexi" amp, you don't know what it will do to the plastics inside a potentiometer until you try it (especially if the shaft is plastic, in my experience). I have seen potentiometers inside certain equipment that will seize up if you spray anything inside of them; and if those need cleaning, the only recourse seems to be to take them apart, clean the dust and gunk out with Q tips and alcohol, clean the carbon track lightly with a pencil eraser, and reassemble, perhaps with a thin coating of clear silicone transistor heatsink grease on the conductive carbon-plastic track (I haven't seen this damage anything so far, but unfortunately there is always a first time). Whatever factory-installed lubricant is between the shaft and the bushing is best left alone if you can. Slide faders are a special case and I don't ever recommend spraying them with anything, not even Faderlube. There are numerous videos on RU-vid of recording studio technicians disassembling faders and cleaning them manually, and this is the only way to do it properly in my experience. Merely spraying faders with any type of control cleaner is a recipe for washing out the factory lubricants or mixing those differing lubes together, with unpredictable results, often making the faders sticky and jerky and perhaps even causing them to seize. You are correct to try and point out that all of these various cleaning chemicals are not the same product, chemically different, with different types and levels of lubrication, and are not universal for one electronic cleaning job to the next. It would be helpful if you'd speak a little more loudly, and less haltingly; I had to use the RU-vid software to speed up the video in order to get through it.
