Low volume problem

I decided to clean the inside of my vintage Akai stereo receiver with some QD Electronic Cleaner that I bought at Ace Hardware today. I took the top off and sprayed liberal amounts of the cleaner inside and let it dry out. However, when I hooked it back up, the receiver only comes on at very low volume. It sounds as if the FM Mute button is stuck on. It does the same thing to AM stations as well so maybe the Mute button can be ruled out. I plugged in a pair of headphones and it didn't help.

Any suggestions?

Bob in Colorado

Reply to
Robert
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Why ?

You're a nitwit ?

What on earth gave you such a monumentally bad idea in the first place ?

A competent tech may be able to recover whatever you've done to it fortunately. It won't be cheap though.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Google groups and gmail again !

Sheesh ! The new answer to WebTVers.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

I've blocked all posts from googlegroups in my newsreader. It's by far the single largest source of trolls on usenet.

Reply to
Rick Thompson

I did have a reason for cleaning. I was getting a popping noise from one of the channels and I wanted to clean the pots. Apparently just because it's recommended in the FAQ doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Thanks to everybody for the (ahem) constructive advice.

Robert

Reply to
Bob

Dirty pots aren't a cause of popping I'm afraid !

Does the FAQ advise drenching your gear in solvent ? I doubt it !

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

does any of the other functions work like tape or aux inputs?

Reply to
jfetr

Yes it does. Although the FAQ recommends soaking the equipment in a solution of Fantastic (not electronic cleaner). See below:

"Eliminating tobacco smoke smell from electronic equipment:

First, unplug it. then open it up as much as possible. get a spray bottle of Fantastic and cut the strength in half with water.

Put the thing over the kitchen sink and spray away. let it sit for a minute and watch the yellow nicotine crud slither out. repeat if necessary you shouldn't even have to do any scrubbing.

Avoid getting the stuff into inaccessible dial spaces, water spots are inevitable.

Then, and this is very important, use the sink spray to thoroughly, very thoroughly, rinse any hint of cleaner out. (it is NaOH, most all cleaners are)

Shake it off, spin it around, whatever, to remove excess water.

Heat your oven to 140 degrees F. put in oven for 2 to 3 hours. use some kind of metal cookie sheet between it and the oven elements to avoid radiant melting."

Reply to
Bob in CO

Hi!

Are you saying that you just held the can above the receiver chassis and sprayed it? Or did you try to clean certain components with it, like the controls?

My first thought is that this stuff may contain some type of lubricating oil that isn't going to evaporate easily (or at all). If this is the case, whatever has been left behind may be shorting something in the receiver out.

I think you're going to have to clean all of the stuff out of this receiver before it will work properly. This is likely going to take a bit of time to do, and may require substantial disassembly. I am not sure what you would use to clean the receiver.

William

Reply to
William R. Walsh

You need to clean & dry out the mechanical tuning capacitor. The one driven by the dial string. Use a hairdrier, not too close. Don't melt the plastic in it. Dani.

Robert wrote:

Reply to
Dani

I put the stereo back together today and everything is working again. The mystery is that I had turned it on just minutes before I reassembled it and it still had the low volume problem.

Thanks again for the help, Bob

Reply to
Bob in CO

This is utter rubbish.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

No, it isn't. The liquid contact cleaner will change the capacitance and detune the front end. Sometimes it will stop a receiver from working at all, till it evaporates.

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

The oven trick is great for mass desoldering SMD parts, I keep an old table top oven for curing adhesives and other stuff like that and I left a couple of scrap hard drives in the bottom to space things further from the elements. Last time I cleaned it out there were little heaps of SMD MOSFETs & diodes etc fallen off the HDs - all the ones I tested worked fine!

Reply to
ian field

I have some trouble believing that anyone intelligent would advise washing electronics at home in sodium hydroxide solution and tap water !

You're damn lucky it recovered.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

"Eeyore" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@REMOVETHIS.hotmail.com...

Maybe the water had LSD in it!!!

Reply to
ian field

"Eeyore" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@REMOVETHIS.hotmail.com...

Washing a board is not necessarily a problem, per se. One particular commercial board that I repair literally hundreds of, frequently requires washing off of the drinks ingredients that have got all over it. I do this with hot water, ordinary dishwashing liquid, and a nylon dish scrubbing brush. I use very hot water to rinse it off, and after a couple of good shakes, most of this has gone, the rest almost evaporating off on its own over a couple of minutes. I place the board finally in front of a small fan for a few minutes, which finishes off the drying process. The results are spectacular with a cleaned board looking like new. I have never had one return later as a result of any problems caused by the washing. But here's the trick. These boards have only 'standard' components fitted - R's, IC's, TR's Caps etc. I would not dream of applying this cleaning method, or even one using volatile solvents, to any board with anything RF on it such as IF trannies, RF front end coils etc. I can't believe that any reputable service person would suggest doing such a thing, and I agree with you Graham, it is very very lucky that the thing has recovered at all. I rather think that there is no telling what long term damage may have been done ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

Many fluxes are water washable these days, but the previous poster was objecting to advice to use water and caustic soda - this could result in all that's left of the aluminium electrolytics is the copper wires sticking up out of the board!!!!!

Reply to
ian field

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