Deoxit

[Enzo]

Like many of us, I use DeOxit spray for pot cleaning.

I was looking around for who sells it, and find $13-15 as a common price.

I just found Parts Express is currently selling it for $9.98

CAIG DeoxIT D5S-6 Spray 5 oz.

[Steve A.]

Shipping charge would be $8.41 for me. (The gold is $15.98.) There is free shipping for orders over ~$100... So what else do I need to buy from them...

Steve A.

[DrGonz78]

Buy at least 3 cans and it will be under $13 a can after shipping charges, $12.84 each. Buy 6 cans and it is $11.53 each, not a bad price indeed! :-)

[Mick Bailey]

The cheapest 5oz can of D5 over here in the UK works out to around $28.

[km6xz]

I've sort of come full circle. The first good de-oxidizer I used was Cramolin that we had to import from Germany since there was nothing in the US. That started getting harder to import and then Craig Labs licensed some of the patents from Cramolin and started producing DeOxit and switched to that for years and was happy. Getting over here, no DeOxit but a number of substitutes from local companies and CRC and others. Found that Cramolin changed the product names and now with an updated version rebranded as KontactClean. What did studios do before these great de-oxidizers? Replaced a lot of pots, used burnishing tools and generally has a rougher time of it.

I remember years ago, an ad at AES by ITT pointing out that their jacks and TT patchbay/cables were partly responsible for the millions of top records since every studio routed signals through them. Actually a better bet that every hit record was facilitated by DeOxit more.
It seems that only recently musicians have learned about it. Just think of all the repairs in shops that were completed solely with a little squirt or drop of DeOxit.

[Mick Bailey]

I've been using a Polish product called kontakt PR for a few years now. Just got 4x300ml cans on their way from a distributor over there called TME.

It's specifically formulated to clean, lubricate and restore pots. Where I get a job where it doesn't work, a post-mortem will show there's mechanical damage or the track/wiper has worn through. It also works nicely on semi-sealed riveted pots. Just a tiny amount creeping into the edge of the joint is enough.

Servisol used to be the go-to bench product in the UK for general switch and contact cleaning, but I reckon it's killed more audio pots than it saved.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Cramolin was heaven-sent when Caig started to flog it to the audio market late 70's - early 80's. At first it was sold in a kit, two one-dram vials, red and blue. You had to dip in a toothpick and dab it into pots or wherever. First the red, let it 'work' , spray witn non-residue cleaner, then dab in some blue, then another shot of non-res. Saved a lot of pots that way, also discovered a tiny bit of 'cram' quieted down tube pin-socket connections. Note - tiny bit. Also note the non-residue after-washes. By mid 80's they had the spray cans Cramolin red & blue with freon propellant, and printed on them "The less you use the better it works." By mid 90's freon's off the market and Caig changed the product name to DeOxit. Also took off the "less you use" advice. Hm... by now the sales department was "in charge" and out to sell sell sell. Still good stuff, solves a lot of problems for me. And as Mick noted, if it didn't fix a pot, the problem was one that couldn't be fixed, or there's DC on the pot and another repair technique necessary.

I avoid the gold except when treating gold contacts such as edge connectors. Same thing - a light treatment followed by near complete removal. Just takes a couple molecules in the right place to make it work right. I've found it overused by uninformed people who think "gold" is the highest product designation so must be better than anything, plus the more you use the better it works. Not so! It gums things up something awful when overused or used in the wrong place. (So much for SGM's advice about marinating your gear in DeOxit Gold. OTOH a soak in a dilute solution of DeOxit D - equivalent to Red Cramolin - can pre-treat pots and switches if you want to make them very long-lived.)

Parts Express has had the super sale price going a while now. I've also gotten DeOxit from Antique/CE and Magic Parts/Ruby Tubes. Generally about $13-15 for a small 5 oz spray can. So the PE sale at $9.95 is a heck of a deal.

Historical reference: a couple years ago someone in Audio Asylum put up a copy of a Cramolin ad from 1928. It's been around a long time! How well distributed, and how well known to repair & maintenance techs, I don't know. Without a proper product like this techs were dripping things like methyl or ethyl alcohol, light solvent oils, or carbon tetrachloride into pots & switches trying to clean them. Quality patch bay contacts had a light plating of non-oxidizing metal typically palladium which is similar to platinum just less expensive. That feature has probably long since been discontinued.

What was notable in the 80's was a proliferation of products trying to compete. None of them worked well, and people wrecked their gear putting various snake oil - toe jam crap into their pots, switches and sockets. As long as you followed directions, Cramolin and later DeOxit were the only products that really worked. Yes what would we do without 'em.

[tedmich]

some guys contact cleaner page
Contact Cleaners
(I would not put TarnX on a pot...its acidified thiourea)

pretty simple stuff. Usually oleic acid (or a chlorinated form of oleic acid or esters) in a carrier solvent. Used to be freon now something else...the oleic acid may serve as both a lube and a sacrificial reducing agent keeping O2 away from the metal.
Much is just mixed hydrocarbons with CO2 propellant.

on another site: "The original Cramolin red was oleic acid with a little sudan red, and TF (SIC, R12 freon?) as the vehicle, at least according to the prewar German patent. "

The freon was the ultimate residue free washing agent, now banned, Limonene has replaced it in many applications BUT needs to be washed away with high purity water.

People like KLH Model Eight and Stabilant 22...

[Mark Hammer]

Stabilant 22 is a good complement to DeOxit. It isn't a contact cleaner, but a contact enhancer. It is an electroconductive polymer that forms a non-drying equivalent of a liquid solder joint. Have an IC socket that just seems to provide unreliable contact with the chip? Dab a sesame-seed-sized droplet of Stabilant on each socket pin and watch the device spring back to life.

DeOxit will remove resistive coatings on contacts, but does nothing for any gaps between contacts. And in the land of electrons, one micron can be like the Grand Canyon. Stabilant fills that space. It will NOT bring back to life a wah pot that has been used by a Cream cover band to play "White Room", twice nightly, for the last 35 years, but within those constraints, it does a remarkable job of making a great many contacts quieter. I was introduced to it by a buddy who runs an award-winning studio, and generally works from 2" tape before moving to the digital domain for mastering purposes. He has some seriously long-throw faders on his board, and needs them to be dead quiet. He uses Stabilant to do that.

If Parts Express, or anybody else offered a package price of DeOxit and Stabilant, THAT would be sweet.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Stabilant 22 is a good complement to DeOxit. It isn't a contact cleaner, but a contact enhancer.

Funny t'ing, Cramolin was marketed in the 80's as a contact enhancer. Improves conductivity between surfaces without itself being conductive. Pretty good trick. Don't see that DeOxit is described that way, hmm.... Since Caig let the salesmen take over their info is kind of dodgy sorta carnival barker style. I'll have to score some Stabilant 22 & experiment with it. Can you recommend a source?

[Mark Hammer]

Wish I could. A now-closed industrial electronics place in my city used to carry little half-milliliter sample vials for 50 cents a pop, and I bought up a big handful, giving them out to buddies as gifts. I'm down to my last half dozen, now, but that 0.5ml will easily treat 30-40 pots.

It's expensive, compared to most spray contact cleaners, but can be successfully diluted with .

Here is the technical blurb from this Amazon seller http://www.amazon.ca/Stabilant-5ml-K.../dp/B001E50GQS :

"Stabilant 22 is an electrically active material which stays resident within a contact-pair, there enhancing conductivity without causing electrical leakage between adjacent contacts. Although Stabilant 22 does have a detergent action it is not sold as a cleaner, just as it has a good lubricant action but is not sold as a lubricant. Stabilant 22 is used to increase the reliability of contacts. Tenfold to one hundred-fold increases are not unusual. At the present time it is used in many different types of contacts, including card-edge connectors, D-type connectors, MIL-spec connectors, signal switches, etc. Stabilant 22 is an initially non-conductive amorphous-semiconductive polyoxyethylene-polyoxypropyline block polymer with a molecular weight of about 2800 that, when used in thin films between contacts, acts under the influence of the electrical field and switches to a conductive state. The electric field gradient at which this occurs is established during manufacture so that the material will remain normally non-conductive. Its switching speed is too slow to allow it to be used in the more traditional semiconductor applications; however, this means that signals at frequencies substantially above five cycles per hour will not be modulated by the switching characteristics of Stabilant 22. In its undiluted form at room temperature, Stabilant 22 has the viscosity of medium-weight motor oil, although it thins out with increasing temperature, starting to decompose into the two polymers it is formed from at about 240° Celsius. It has a very low vapor pressure and therefore there is no appreciable loss of material from evaporation. It has been in some applications for more than fifteen years without renewal, and it is probably safe to say that in the majority of cases, the equipment on which it is used will be retired as obsolescent before the Stabilant must be renewed. "

What's interesting is that, on this Amazon web page, when you see the "customers who bought this also bought", it's basically DeOxit purchases.

[Steve A.]

OK- I drank the Caig Gold kool-aid and have treated all of my pots with it (after cleaning them with Caig Red as needed.) Has this been creating problems- or just not doing good?

Stabilant 22 is ~$40 at Amazon. I see that it is recommended for switch contacts but how well does it work on pots? Do you need to remove the back to treat the resistive path? One more question... any good sources for 99% alcohol? I used to get it at Safeway at a very reasonable price but I haven't seen it for years. When I was running the parts dept at Pacific Stereo we ordered anhydrous (sp?) alcohol for the service tech but 99% seems to be just as good for anything besides tape heads...

Steve A.

P.S. I was looking around Parts Express and see that they have great prices on linear taper guitar pots which are getting harder to find these days. My cart is halfway to $100 free shipping... maybe I will get a few cans of Caig Red even though I still have a few partial cans around.

Leo_Gnardo- what do you use as a non-residue cleaner?

[tedmich]

"Stabilant 22 is an electrically active material which stays resident within a contact-pair, there enhancing conductivity without causing electrical leakage between adjacent contacts. Although Stabilant 22 does have a detergent action it is not sold as a cleaner, just as it has a good lubricant action but is not sold as a lubricant. Stabilant 22 is used to increase the reliability of contacts. Tenfold to one hundred-fold increases are not unusual. At the present time it is used in many different types of contacts, including card-edge connectors, D-type connectors, MIL-spec connectors, signal switches, etc. Stabilant 22 is an initially non-conductive amorphous-semiconductive polyoxyethylene-polyoxypropyline block polymer with a molecular weight of about 2800 that, when used in thin films between contacts, acts under the influence of the electrical field and switches to a conductive state. The electric field gradient at which this occurs is established during manufacture so that the material will remain normally non-conductive. Its switching speed is too slow to allow it to be used in the more traditional semiconductor applications; however, this means that signals at frequencies substantially above five cycles per hour will not be modulated by the switching characteristics of Stabilant 22. In its undiluted form at room temperature, Stabilant 22 has the viscosity of medium-weight motor oil, although it thins out with increasing temperature, starting to decompose into the two polymers it is formed from at about 240° Celsius. It has a very low vapor pressure and therefore there is no appreciable loss of material from evaporation. It has been in some applications for more than fifteen years without renewal, and it is probably safe to say that in the majority of cases, the equipment on which it is used will be retired as obsolescent before the Stabilant must be renewed. "

^^ most of that stuff is pretty confused, but polyoxyethylene-polyoxypropylene block copolymers is the chemical name for BASFs Pluronic brand of surfactants, and an avg MW = 2800 Daltons sounds like Pluronic L-81, and Stabilant has it in a 75% isopropanol solution. This stuff should be completely dielectric so I don't quite get the 0.00139 Hz lower limit of conduction or semiconductor behaviour...maybe its trace metal contamination or some sprinkled in conductor like graphite or metal powder...

cost of 0.5 mL should be < $0.03

Nye makes a ton of lubes for pots and faders:
http://www.nyelubricants.com/applica...tiometer.shtml
none of them are conductive or even semiconductive. If you think about it conductive grease would short the resistive element, you just need a lube which doesn't film to the degree that it would break the contact between wiper and resistive element.

[Enzo]

I buy the 99% stuff at the drug store, it is insanely cheap. Drugstore section of my local grocery too. There are also diluted ones on the shelf, with a bunch of water. So look on the label for the 99%.

You can buy anhydrous isopropyl, but it is EXTREMELY hydrophilic, it loves to absorb water. As soon as you open a container of anhydrous the water in the air is absorbed into it, et voila, 99%

99% is as undilute as they can make it in a jar on the shelf, and is more than dry enough for our needs.

[Leo_Gnardo]

OK- I drank the Caig Gold kool-aid and have treated all of my pots with it (after cleaning them with Caig Red as needed.) Has this been creating problems- or just not doing good?

One more question... any good sources for 99% alcohol? I used to get it at Safeway at a very reasonable price but I haven't seen it for years. When I was running the parts dept at Pacific Stereo we ordered anhydrous (sp?) alcohol for the service tech but 99% seems to be just as good for anything besides tape heads...

Leo_Gnardo- what do you use as a non-residue cleaner?

If you haven't noticed any problems with Gold DeOxit then - no problem. I'd just select a different product. But that's me. For those things that clean up with alcohol, I use 95% ethyl AKA EverClear from right here in the USA, or Polmos Spirytus Rektyfikowany made in Poland, available at liquor stores.. Both are essentially dehydrated vodka. (For those inclined to do so, either is drinkable BUT must be diluted beforehand. If not you WILL get hurt and I don't mean just drunk.) Non res cleaner spray I use is Caig DCC-V510 Contact Cleaner Wash. It's a mix of ethyl & methyl alcohol (AKA denatured), acetone and N-heptane. Yes it's flammable! Also best to have some good ventilation, the fumes will get to you.

Anhydrous ethyl alcohol is weird stuff - it's hygroscopic - absorbs water from the air until it's 95% which is the highest stable fraction you can have. If you poured some into a beaker, right up to the top, in a few minutes it would be overflowing from the water it absorbs.

Isopropyl, well it's a good solvent all right but a bit dodgy medically. The body has no means of clearing it, even from inhaled fumes, so it accumulates and causes problems, according to Dr Hulda Regehr Clark. As a cancer survivor Steve, you should be aware, and perhaps choose to avoid solvents that may cause you damage. And that goes for all the rest of yez too.