Gear Maintenance???

[teh dri]

heya guys i was just wondering about gear maintenance. im a 20 year old audio engineering student but the course is very light on some issues. take my amp for instance. i assume it would be a good idea to clean the contacts for the speaker cables every so often? with what though? even cd players/burners... whats a good lens cleaner? whats a good rescourse to learn how to solder and make my own cables? my course certainly doesnt teach that and the more i look around the more i see it would be an essential skill for the studio. oh wise men and women of many years wisdown, im all ears [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] ------------------

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[quote]Originally posted by DRiLoad: [b]even cd players/burners... whats a good lens cleaner? [/b][/quote] CD cleaners are the biggest joke ever foisted onto the public... They do [i]nothing[/i]. Kind of like the "green magic marker on a CD improves the sound" urban legend. If you treat your CD player or CD-ROM drive with a reasonable amount of care (like, you don't dunk it in a puddle of mud), there's no reason to ever clean the CD lens. This message has been edited by popmusic on 08-02-2001 at 08:19 AM

[miroslav]

Yes...clean all contacts regularly (Caig cleaner is tops) No...leave the CD lens alone! Soldering technique...well...lots of practice.

[GY]

"oh wise men and women of many years wisdown, im all ears" I like this person already! Some "must have" chemicals for the maintenance tool box. LPS brand makes great lubricants. Better than WD40. Naptha (lighter fluid) is a great cleaner to get gummy shit off of things. Thousand and one uses. Acetone (this stuff is nasty, melts plastic) cleaner. Denatured alcohol for cleaning tape heads and other things. GC Electronics "De-ox-id" switch and pot cleaner (better than Caig in my opinion). In a pinch, LPS can be used as a contact cleaner. "Color Back" liquid car wax for cleaning plastic readouts and paint. "Color Back" can also bring back a dull paint surface on equipment. With all chemicals, you want to test a small area on the bottom side with all these chemicals until you get the idea of what works on what. Soldering. A Weller WLC-100 is a good first time soldering pencil that even has a temperature control for $30. Get some "Nokorode" soldering paste for those stubborn metals. Get some solder wick. Small jeweler files and screwdrivers. Alligator clips. I like analog test meters. They're easier to read for voltage variations. All for now... gotta go. Good luck!

[FoxTick]

Miroslav, you say leave the CD lense alone. i know this may be a bit off the topic but, the CD player in my truck has been acting funny (unable to read some CDs) since my camping trip last weekend. the place i went was extremely dusty, i am convinced that the lense needs to be cleaned. if the cd player absolutely needs it, is it safe to clean the lens with one of those CDs you buy at music stores that have that felt-like material on them? SactoG

[Sui]

Dust bunnies and anti static/dust spray. It goes a long way to keeping everything looking new and clean, all the time.

[strat0124]

I'd be wary of oiling things, oil attracts dirt, and unless you have the time to clean more than I do, you'll soon have greasy mud on whatever you oiled up. If you use it, use it sparingly, and wipe off the excess immediately. I use compressed air, tri-chlor (electronic cleaner), head cleaners and lubricants, and have a tool box full of specialized tools for working on guitars. Files to cut nuts are expensive by the way, if you buy a specialized set. I even have some dental tools that work well for some things. If you keep covers on most of your stuff, your cleaning will be less frequent, and keeps those faders smooth. A word on tape heads....I've found if I use the best quality master series tape, my heads stay pretty clean. Use cheap stuff, and you'll notice it after a while. Soldering techniques: I learned micro-miniature repair while in the Navy, so I have a high standard regarding soldering. I'd say either take a course, or read up on proper techniques, and of course as others have said...practice makes perfect. You can ruin electronics in short order if you don't know what you're doin. And that goes for troubleshooting with test equipment as well. Good Luck.

[Rod S]

[quote]Originally posted by sactog: [b].... if the cd player absolutely needs it, is it safe to clean the lens with one of those CDs you buy at music stores that have that felt-like material on them? [/b][/quote] Cleaning the CD lens with a CD makes no sense. It does do anything. There's no magical light that reflects off the cd that cleans the lens. I hope the person that markets that thing shows up in the next year's darwin awards list [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] I guess you can try to physically clean the lens with a bit of alcohol with a q-tip, but even that I would be skeptical of doing, and I've never tried it. I would open the CD player and with one of the squeezable rubber bulbs (I have no idea what the hell it's called) that's used with camera lenses try to clean the inside. I'm skeptical of using those compressed air cans because you can make the problem worse by forcing dust in areas that you'll never be able to get out again.

[FoxTick]

"Cleaning the CD lens with a CD makes no sense. It does do anything. There's no magical light that reflects off the cd that cleans the lens. " thats why theres a felt-like material on it. the felt (at least thats what it looks like) part touches or brushes accross the lense to get all the schmutz off of it. at least thats how i assume it would work, i wouldnt know ive never tried it. if worse comes to worse, i guess i could take my dashboard apart in order to get the deck out so i can open the unit and attempt to clean the lens but thats pretty much a whole day project er...more trouble than its worth. SactoG

[miroslav]

[quote]Originally posted by sactog: [b]...i could take my dashboard apart in order to get the deck out so i can open the unit and attempt to clean the lens but thats pretty much a whole day project er...more trouble than its worth...[/b][/quote] Toooooo much troouble...don't do it!!! Try the "Cleaning CD" or give it a shot of compressed air before you rip it apart.

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My attitude is, once a CD player starts behaving erratically, throw it out and buy another one. I've never had much luck fixing 'em myself (I did do a temporary fix on one, but eventually it ended up *scratching* some of my CDs). The prices for players and drives are inexpensive (as far as audio gear goes), and it's usually less hassle to just buy another one. If you're having problems playing CDs, I seriously doubt it's the lens... Most likely, it's a mechanical problem within the player. (I don't take a disposable attitude towards most gear, but CD players are different... [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] )

[Rod S]

[quote]Originally posted by sactog: [b]thats why theres a felt-like material on it. the felt (at least thats what it looks like) part touches or brushes accross the lense to get all the schmutz off of it. at least thats how i assume it would work, i wouldnt know ive never tried it. if worse comes to worse, i guess i could take my dashboard apart in order to get the deck out so i can open the unit and attempt to clean the lens but thats pretty much a whole day project er...more trouble than its worth. [/b][/quote] Wow. So there actually is a product that is not a scam. The one I saw was actually just a CD that had a 'special coating on it'... I work with precision optics. Most of these materials actually put more crap in the lens that there was there initially. I wouldn't use it personally. Plus, at the speed that a CD rotates, if you get something in there between this felt and the lens, even a small piece of dust, you WILL scratch the lens. I think it's a bad idea. I concur with just getting a new one. I've always had pretty good luck with CD players.

[teh dri]

haha i love this message board, you get the info you want within a day of posting a message. awesome. thanks for the tips. regarding cd players i have similar distaste for the effort and money needed to fix them, i have one that doesnt power up and one with tray problems, so they sit to the side until i have time to fix them. my dvd players are a different story. im not a guitarist but id like to find some info on repairing and putting together guitars. no doubt that will be useful. lastly for humours sake, i have met a guy who is known round here as a pretty decent engineer, yet at his home studio he never uses dust covers. seems he likes to look at all his gear and impress people with it all... haha "dustcovers are ugly" hey how much are cans of compressed air? oh and those glass-and-rubber-bulb things are called Pipettes, at least in the world of science. might have some generic name or something. ------------------

[Sui]

Compressed air is cheap - just be prepared to prove you're 18 when you plop it down on the checkout counter (I have a little grey hair and they still asked me for ID the last time I got compressed air). Apparently compressed air is also a cheap high, so they just don't sell it to anyone.

[Bonafide]

Here is link written to an Alesis page that was written by Craig. I have read this exact stuff in another one of his books. His thoughts on the burn-in period have yet to fail me in my music gear. http://www.alesis.com/support/cc/maint.html Cheers.