"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
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"Eeyore" wrote in
message ...


Bob in CO wrote:

In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

Bob wrote:

In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

Robert wrote:

I decided to clean the inside of my vintage Akai stereo receiver

Why ?

with
some QD Electronic Cleaner that I bought at Ace Hardware today.
I took
the top off and sprayed liberal amounts of the cleaner inside
and let
it dry out. However, when I hooked it back up, the receiver only
comes
on at very low volume. It sounds as if the FM Mute button is
stuck on.
It does the same thing to AM stations as well so maybe the Mute
button
can be ruled out. I plugged in a pair of headphones and it
didn't help.

Any suggestions?

You're a nitwit ?

What on earth gave you such a monumentally bad idea in the first
place ?

A competent tech may be able to recover whatever you've done to it
fortunately.
It won't be cheap though.

Graham

I did have a reason for cleaning. I was getting a popping noise from
one
of the channels and I wanted to clean the pots.

Dirty pots aren't a cause of popping I'm afraid !


Apparently just because
it's recommended in the FAQ doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Thanks to everybody for the (ahem) constructive advice.

Does the FAQ advise drenching your gear in solvent ? I doubt it !

Graham

Yes it does. Although the FAQ recommends soaking the equipment in a
solution of Fantastic (not electronic cleaner). See below:

"Eliminating tobacco smoke smell from electronic equipment:

First, unplug it. then open it up as much as possible. get a spray
bottle of Fantastic and cut the strength in half with water.

Put the thing over the kitchen sink and spray away. let it sit for a
minute and watch the yellow nicotine crud slither out. repeat if
necessary you shouldn't even have to do any scrubbing.

Avoid getting the stuff into inaccessible dial spaces, water spots are
inevitable.

Then, and this is very important, use the sink spray to thoroughly, very
thoroughly, rinse any hint of cleaner out. (it is NaOH, most all
cleaners are)

Shake it off, spin it around, whatever, to remove excess water.

Heat your oven to 140 degrees F. put in oven for 2 to 3 hours. use some
kind of metal cookie sheet between it and the oven elements to avoid
radiant melting."

I have some trouble believing that anyone intelligent would advise
washing
electronics at home in sodium hydroxide solution and tap water !

You're damn lucky it recovered.

Graham



Washing a board is not necessarily a problem, per se. One particular
commercial board that I repair literally hundreds of, frequently requires
washing off of the drinks ingredients that have got all over it. I do this
with hot water, ordinary dishwashing liquid, and a nylon dish scrubbing
brush. I use very hot water to rinse it off, and after a couple of good
shakes, most of this has gone, the rest almost evaporating off on its own
over a couple of minutes. I place the board finally in front of a small
fan for a few minutes, which finishes off the drying process. The results
are spectacular with a cleaned board looking like new. I have never had
one return later as a result of any problems caused by the washing. But
here's the trick. These boards have only 'standard' components fitted -
R's, IC's, TR's Caps etc. I would not dream of applying this cleaning
method, or even one using volatile solvents, to any board with anything RF
on it such as IF trannies, RF front end coils etc. I can't believe that
any reputable service person would suggest doing such a thing, and I agree
with you Graham, it is very very lucky that the thing has recovered at
all. I rather think that there is no telling what long term damage may
have been done ...

Arfa


Many fluxes are water washable these days, but the previous poster was
objecting to advice to use water and caustic soda - this could result in all
that's left of the aluminium electrolytics is the copper wires sticking up
out of the board!!!!!