cleaning patchbays

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pucho812

pucho812

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Oct 4, 2004
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third stone from the sun
Accoring to bittree


1. The patch cord ends should be cleaned with denatured alcohol (electronic grade 99.97%, not rubbing alcohol) and a soft, clean, lint-free cloth. When cleaning the gold-plated center pin on video patch cord plugs, use a small electronic grade foam swab only.

2. Using the cleaned patch cord, exercise the patchbay jacks by inserting and removing the plug as many as 10 times. The friction from this procedure helps to remove any built-up contaminants on the mating surfaces.

3. Repeat step #1.


do they really mean denatured alcohol or should one use isopropyl?
 
Pure isopropyl (91% or purer) is one of the preferred, no residue cleaning fluids. I use pure grain alcohol, purchased at my local liquor store. Some denatured alcohol has a bit of petroleum distillate in it, thus "denatured." This may not be an issue when cleaning patch bays, but it is a nuisance when cleaning tape heads.
 
I've always used denatured, with no ill effects on tin, gold, silver, nickel and rhodium plated contact surfaces. Klean-Strip brand doesn't seem to leave any residue, though I've had some brands that do leave a very slight film.

A cotton mop type .30 caliber rifle bore cleaning swab dampened with alcohol or sprayed with contact cleaner works great to clean a 1/4" phone jack's bore and internal tip/ring contacts, plus they're also lint-free. You can get em cheap in the sporting goods department at WalMart. Something like this:

Bore Mop.jpg
 
Last edited:
Doc Morgan said:
Pure isopropyl (91% or purer) is one of the preferred, no residue cleaning fluids. I use pure grain alcohol, purchased at my local liquor store. Some denatured alcohol has a bit of petroleum distillate in it, thus "denatured." This may not be an issue when cleaning patch bays, but it is a nuisance when cleaning tape heads.
Click to expand...
That’s why I asked. Because denatured can leave a residue.
 
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Bo Deadly said:
My instinct would be to put a little DeoxIT on a TT plug and insert / jiggle / twist so that the solvent reaches the open contacts.
Click to expand...

Deoxit leaves a film. Our second l(tape op/tea boy) was attempting to clean the patchbay with deoxit. He never told anyone. Now I got suspect patch points and since they only thing that changed was he tried to clean them I can only think wtf did he do?
 
Bo Deadly said:
My instinct would be to put a little DeoxIT on a TT plug and insert / jiggle / twist so that the solvent reaches the open contacts.
Click to expand...

I think there are two things to consider here - oxidisation of the metallic surface and external contamination eg 'grease'. Use DeOxit to sort the oxidisation effects then finish off with isopropyl alcohol to remove 'grease' along with any undesirable DeOxit remains. DeOxit residue will depend on whether using flushing or non-flushing type.
 
That might be an idea for the Solvent Injectors (click thru to the Canford product page). But the burnishes are intended to err...burnish and that isn't going to happen with PTFE where a defining characteristic is low friction.
Personally I've always shied away from them because of the wear issue (apart from the cost 😳)
 
Newmarket said:
That might be an idea for the Solvent Injectors (click thru to the Canford product page). But the burnishes are intended to err...burnish and that isn't going to happen with PTFE where a defining characteristic is low friction.
Personally I've always shied away from them because of the wear issue (apart from the cost 😳)
Click to expand...
I was given a pair of them, solvent injector & burnisher. In my view to get the crap off the contacts you just need solvent & something to adgitate the crap. Therefore in my view just some ridges on, maybe not telflon, but perhaps nylon would probably be enough & wouldn't destroy the contact slowly like the the Canford ones do with too much use. If one was able to get to the conatcts with a tooth brush & some solvent that would probably clean the contacts, so it's not really necessary to have metal construction.
 
We didnt use the burnishing tool in the studio I was in , its designed to scrape a layer of metal off the socket , typically we used a shot of servisol isopropyl based cleaner and plugged in and out a jack several times ,
On the bantam bay on the console we had the normalising contacts become intermittant a few times , a burnisher doesnt help in that situation . The old fashioned BPO Mosses and Mitchel bays never gave any trouble .

I did find certain producers who liked to run a regular mic cable or two back to the control room , avoiding the patch-bay grounding system completely , typically used on vocals and overdubs etc .
 
Worst case you run a strip of fine grit (1200)emery paper once or twice across the contacts , wont do too much damage to the plating ,but should get rid of any crud .

I sometimes use a weft of fine steel wool wrapped around a slotted bamboo cocktail stick and WD-40 to polish the contacts on guitar/amp jacks if theres signs of corrosion , you want to be able to make sure no traces of steel wool left behind . I dry off the wd-40 residue with a few cotton buds afterwards .
 
I know I have chastised the burnishers and the "shoot pressurized solvent into the bay" tools on these pages in the past. The latter is a complete mess as you spray stuff all over the other patchpoints. The former just pushes the dirt around.
As far as emory paper goes, if you have the bay out such that you can get emory paper on it I would not do that but would drop some solvent with an IM hypo on the normals, exercise, and blow with a compressor on low pressure because you do not want to blow dust/dirt all over everything else.
My first advise is keep the place clean! Weekly studio vaccing with a 2" horse hair brush(old-school electrolux style) with 1/4" hardware cloth in it to catch the knob and switch caps. You would be amazed at how much dust gathers on the cloth even with regular cleaning. A studio looks and functions better with regular cleaning.
If I can remove a bay away from the others I will solvent/blow like I mentioned. Luckily my rooms have never had many dirty normal issues. Usually the older Neves which have some leeway to get a problem bay away from the others.
With SSL and other consoles with tighter bays I have always used iso alcohol on a qtip. I get the cheap swabs because the heads are smaller and the cotton more abrasive. Qtip brand are too soft, and you have to remove some cotton. Of course I need to have a paper clip mini hook on hand to fish-out the occasional head. Depending on how dirty, you get 4-6 points per qtip end.
And I do spray de-oxit on a twill and wipe a TTY, very minimal, and stick it in 4 or so points before re-wiping the TTY. Never had a problem with return cleaning due to residue. That has always worked with Swithcraft, M&M, AA, Neutrik TTY bays. The plastic Neutric bays get replaced. They will shred a qtip. I clean cords with alcohol and thats it.
If liquid is spilled into the bay then it is distilled water on a removed bay, low pressure air blow, and some gentle heat gun action. Extreme cases warrant replacement.
The worst was an SSL bay in a wall void filled with fiberglass. There was glass all over the patch cords and in the bay. Luckily that was on DL's and got blown-out outside
Mike
 

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