Contact Cleaner

[Fireitup 10+ year member]

Curious if contact cleaner was safe to use on amplifier boards? I know i have used it at work on different boards inside some machines without it bothering them. I have an older autotek 4 ch that has one channel that is scratchy sounding. Curious if cleaning the board and any certain components inside would help or even harm the amp?

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[SounDrive Pro Seller]

Spray some contact cleaner in the gain pot for that channel and work it around about 40-50 times. While you're at it, might as well clean out all the gains/switches this way. As far as I know it's safe for other components too, but I'm no professional.

 

[Fireitup 10+ year member]

Noone else have any feedback?

 

[Spooney 10+ year member]

T2 hit the nail on the head. There is a very good chance you have nothing more than a dirty gain pot/switch. If you can't find a suitable contact cleaner wd-40 will also work but the smell isn't the greatest. I wouldn't recommend doing any of this with the amp powered up or even hooked up to power at all. I have had a few older amps where the smaller filter caps connected to the rca inputs have went bad and caused a scratchy sound as well but thats been pretty rare for me.

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

100% pure acetone should be fine. just do it in a well ventilated are b/c your g/f will think that she's getting a manicure from you.

 

[Spooney 10+ year member]

100% pure acetone should be fine. just do it in a well ventilated are b/c your g/f will think that she's getting a manicure from you.

Acetone and cotton swabs are great for cleaning the circuit board but I wouldnt try to get any of it inside of a gain pot especially if it has any plastic on it. Acetone can destroy some plastics and also eat right through the finish on some amplifiers. It works great for cleaning flux after soldering and cleaning the pads before soldering as well. Just be careful where you use it. For a gain pot the contact cleaner will work a lot better.

 

[Fireitup 10+ year member]

I don't have to worry about caps discharging if cleaner completes circuit?

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

acetone wont conduct and it'll evaporate very quickly. I use to repair cell phones and pagers and always used 100% pure acetone on those boards and never had an issue.