Deoxit

[dan stanton]

Enzo, that's funny. The only difference I've found, so far between Deoxit and Liquid Wrench is the propellant, which should make no difference. I did not bring up WD-40, but would have no problem using it on any wire wound pot or rheostat.

[JHow]

Listen, DeOxIt is THE de facto contact cleaner used by professionals and worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY!

As an amateur, non-professinal, let me add that I have been using the same de-oxit can for almost 10 years. It's not like it takes a lot of solution to clean a pot or a jack. One can is going to go a long way.

I must also add that I've certainly got more than my share of amps, guitars and antique radios to use it on - just ask my wife!

[olddawg]

Listen, DeOxIt is THE de facto contact cleaner used by professionals and worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY! There are reasons e.g. it is time-tested, it works, and used by countless techs and companies who build and service electrical and electronic gear, including military, aviation and medical electronics.

WD-40 is not.

If you'd like to go ahead and clean your pots with WD-40, then go right ahead. I am telling you that someday, you will regret it.

The right tool and chemical for the job. That is my motto, and that is what I adhere to in my day gig here and my own business.

DeOxIt is one of the best. Just about any other contact cleaner is a waste of money. The other one, which is even pricier is Stabilant 22. I use both. When DeOxIt RARELY fails, sometimes Stabilant 22 might work. Google it.

+1 I used to manage a large shop that that did several million dollars worth of repairs yearly. I was/am a certified tech for audio and video equipment from Akai the Zenith. You would not believe the number of units I have seen utterly destroyed by knuckleheads and WD-40. It has few electro-mechanical uses. (I hear it's great for tractors and marine engines) I had one can on my bench and the 40+ techs had to ask me to use it. For most scratchy pots on reasonably new equipment you can just spray in the hole and twist with Caig DeOxIt. Some have carbon bits floating in them. Those you can flush out with non-residue tuner cleaner, let dry,and then spray with DeOxIt. It's a good idea to take a toothpick and put a (tiny) dab of light oil on the shaft. That will keep the pot from freezing up later because the shaft grease was removed by the solvents. You always want to place a paper towel or rage under the pot (if you can) to soak up any drips or overspray. If you are restoring a vintage piece of equipment, you may have to disassemble an old pot. Usually you can just bend the tabs back with a small pair of dikes. Then you retension the wiper, clean the element, clean the shaft and sleeve, regrease the shaft, reassemple the pot, and spray it with DeOxIt. Sometimes you have to take a little emory cloth and even out the element. Sometimes you have to use the pieces from several old pots to make one good one. Especially if the wiper is shot. Anyway, my 2 cents. I will leave describing the process for restoring slider pots to someone else.

[jrfrond]

Caig products are the real deal. When we do mixing console cleanup and maintenance, we use DeOxIt to clean faders, Cailube to lubricate and preserve them, and a "mousemilk" that we create by mixing 100% DeOxit, ProGold and denatured alcohol in a needle applicator to get down into the switches, as well as for connector contacts. Like Olddawg, I learned about DeOxIt (when it was called Cramolin R5 before it was reformulated to remove CFC's) back in the early 80's working for a large service shop, doing "Akai to Zenith". I haven't used anything else since. No need to.

[Gtr_tech]

A TV tech here in town says he will use lacquer thinner (!) to clean pots. The plastic parts in them must just *love* that treatment.....pass on that action.....

[Enzo]

Yep.

I still have a can of Cramoline with a little left in it. Sorta saving it for... well, I am not quite sure just what.

SOmetimes after cleaning and even re-lubing, a slider just won;t slide smoothly anymore. It wants to jump and stick. Where the sprays can;t get well is up under the top of the slider body. And the slide assembly does bear up against that as it slides. If that happens, I use a hook tool, but a bent out paper clip with about 1/8" right engle bend at the end works. Put a little glob of white lube or fine machine grease on the little bent part, then reach down into the slider slot and dab the grease up under the either side of the slot. Move the slider up and down a few times to distribute.

[Prairie Dawg]

Deoxit and Liquid Wrench are both naptha petroleum-based. Look at the ingredients. I'm going to go ahead and use Liquid Wrench on my pots, because, chemically I see no reason NOT to. Also, instead of paying some company for their packaging of the same product easily available in grocery stores, the old ways are cheaper, more effective, and doggone it people will like me!
And now that I have done more research on it, WD-40 would be effective on any wire-wound pot. Blow it out with compressed air, should be new.
Please, anybody, is a bright, shiny penny worth more than rusty dime?

Doesn't Liquid Wrench have some graphite suspended in it? If Deoxit is straight naphtha I can't see any reason not to get a gallon of the stuff at a paint store and a squeeze bottle like the athletes use. When I first started in the shop we used a lot of trichloroethane, but I avoided that right from jump street. It kills livers.

Truth be told, I'm going to try it with some of my own gear and see what happens.

[Prairie Dawg]

Edit.

Caig Deoxit is primarily difluoromethane which is also used as a refrigerant. It is sometimes known as Freon 32.

http://www.sisweb.com/referenc/articles/deoxit_100.pdf

It is therefore not petroleum naphtha.

Liquid Wrench has petroleum naphtha in it but there are other ingredients

http://www.gunk.com/msds/L106.PDF

I'm on my last can of R12.

[Enzo]

diflouromethane is the propellant in the spray can, not the active ingredient.

Many products use a volatile hyrocarbon as a solvent for the active stuff, the volatile flows into the work alaong with the active stuff suspended in it. Then the volatile evaporates, leaving behind the active stuff. It is not inconceivable the same solvent could be used in a can of degreaser AND a can of spray paint.

So a spray can of Deoxit D5 has about 20% propellant - the diflouromethane, and about 75% mineral spirits - the solvent. And the remaining 5% - hence the product name - is the actual Deoxit formulation. In the D100 - 100% - they do not add the solvent, so the can holds 80% propellant, and the remaining 20% of the can is 100% deoxit. You can also buy non-aerosol D100, which I assume is straight Deoxit formulation.

The Deoxit includes in its formula: lubricants, antioxidants, contact enhancers.

In contrast, though the Liqud Wrench may share a common volatile solvent, the active ingredients are: corrosion inhibitors, boron nitride colloid, the latter being a suspension of abrasives if I read correctly. I am not so sure abrasives are what you want in your pots for longest life.

[Steve Conner]

Yes. Like Enzo's nitrous oxide example, the only thing Liquid Wrench and Deoxit have in common is the propellant. (Nitrous being the propellant for both whipped cream and riced-up Hondas.)

The real magic is in the stuff that the propellant carries, and the maker doesn't want to tell you what that is. It's his trade secret, like the recipe for Coke.

[Prairie Dawg]

diflouromethane is the propellant in the spray can, not the active ingredient.

Many products use a volatile hyrocarbon as a solvent for the active stuff, the volatile flows into the work alaong with the active stuff suspended in it. Then the volatile evaporates, leaving behind the active stuff. It is not inconceivable the same solvent could be used in a can of degreaser AND a can of spray paint.

So a spray can of Deoxit D5 has about 20% propellant - the diflouromethane, and about 75% mineral spirits - the solvent. And the remaining 5% - hence the product name - is the actual Deoxit formulation. In the D100 - 100% - they do not add the solvent, so the can holds 80% propellant, and the remaining 20% of the can is 100% deoxit. You can also buy non-aerosol D100, which I assume is straight Deoxit formulation.

The Deoxit includes in its formula: lubricants, antioxidants, contact enhancers.

In contrast, though the Liqud Wrench may share a common volatile solvent, the active ingredients are: corrosion inhibitors, boron nitride colloid, the latter being a suspension of abrasives if I read correctly. I am not so sure abrasives are what you want in your pots for longest life.

Well, I was half right-about Liquid wrench. That's what you get for not reading the correct MSDS sheet. I've learned my lesson for now:

Caution: Engage brain before starting mouth.

The Deoxit most of us use is primarily petroleum naphtha with proprietary additives as Enzo rightly points out.

I'm thinking I may try some naphtha in a squirt bottle and see if it does anything good.

[jrfrond]

Worried about carcinogenic solvents? I still have a gallon of AWA 1,1,1-trichloroethane sitting in my shop. There's nothing better for getting out grease stains. I'm all for safety, the Canada Act and Montreal Protocol, but when the ban on CFC's and HCFC's took effect, REALLY good solvents went out the window. I have some original cans of Blue Shower left as well.

With all of the chemicals, heavy metals, electrical fields and other crap I've been exposed to over the years, my 'nads should glow in the dark, and my kids should have two heads. So far, everything is good.

[Prairie Dawg]

Worried about carcinogenic solvents? I still have a gallon of AWA 1,1,1-trichloroethane sitting in my shop. There's nothing better for getting out grease stains. I'm all for safety, the Canada Act and Montreal Protocol, but when the ban on CFC's and HCFC's took effect, REALLY good solvents went out the window. I have some original cans of Blue Shower left as well.

With all of the chemicals, heavy metals, electrical fields and other crap I've been exposed to over the years, my 'nads should glow in the dark, and my kids should have two heads. So far, everything is good.

I agree with you about R12-I got a few cans out of an old radio shop. The trich is a good degreaser, especially if it is not the recycled stuff from dry cleaning plants, but it has been associated with leukemia.

When I was in the aircraft engine business we used it in the shop, but I avoided the stuff pretty easily.

A combination of Diversey 909, hot water, and some jet fuel works very well out of a spray nozzle for degreasing engines. I cleaned all my engine parts in the Diversey, which is a very powerful detergent. I had a heated stainless steel tank in the shop with this stuff, and one for the Oakite Rustripper. The Oakite was for ferrous parts only as it would rapidly dissolve aluminum-particularly sprayed on coatings.

What gave me the tip on trich was one day after I'd been using the stuff in the shop's vapor degreaser. I got home and I smelled trich everywhere. Turns out it was off gassing through my lungs. I quit right then and there.

100 or 90 per cent isopropyl alcohol is a good degreaser as well, but mighty flammable. You can buy it at auto parts stores-it's more expensive than the methanol they sell there.

[dan stanton]

Just to clarify, regular Liquid Wrench does not contain the graphite colloid. That's LW4.

[Enzo]

Oh original Blue Shower was great, then they started adding the $1.50 per can fed tax, before they outlawed the stuff completely. I bought a couple cases of BLue Shower just before it disapeared too. I have a teensy bit in one can in the corner of the bench left.

99% isopropyl alcohol is great stuff too, but I just buy it at the local pharmacy. A pint of it is $1.59. Geez, 11 years ago the same pint as only $1.17. Of course I am not cleaning engines, just tape heads and such.

I usually use isopropyl on a Qtip to wipe soot off circuit boards after components flame out.