Best Contact Cleaner for Zenith 19EC45 tuner
 

Hi all,
The tuner on my parents Zenith 19EC45 is in need of a good cleaning. A few years ago I used Phillips tuner cleaner with great results.
To my regret, I bought only one can. since then the repair shop I used went out of business and I'm at a loss where to buy more.
Anyone have a particular preference of cleaner and know a good source to buy from?

Ron

WD-40 would probably work. I've used it to fix scratchy volume knobs and other pots before.

I use a product by MG chemicals called "Contact cleaner with silicones". Cat # 404B-340g. Its intended as a tuner cleaner/lube. It has an adjustable sprayer which is very handy for not making a mess of overspray. Its in a 12oz bottle, which is plenty for cleaning many tuners. Most tuner cleaners are in a small container and seem to be empty before you know it. This stuff cost only $8/can. I buy from Frys electronics. I dont think there are too many around but I happen to live near one. MG chemical makes a variety of products for the electronic service tech such as audio/video head cleaner, flux remover, component freeze spray etc. Go to mgchemicals.com to see everything they have Their products come in a very plain color coded container. Ive had great results with everything Ive tried from them.


Lets not get off on a tangent about WD-40 as a contact cleaner. Its not advisable to use, especially as a tuner cleaner.

Really? Why is that? I've used it to fix scratchy pots and switches and it's never given me any trouble. In fact, an old TV repairman is the person who told me about how he used WD-40.

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Just watch the silicone lubricants - most organic polymers aren't compatible with silicone - early plastics don't like silicone at all. Silicone will also destroy the butyl rubber elastic strip often used to keep ferrite tuning slugs snug in adjustable coils. As Andy mentioned, a good cleaning with Deoxit or denatured alcohol (in a pinch) to start, then sparingly apply tuner grease. (If you can still find it!) PTS made the best stuff, their green grease. Second choice would be General Cement's TunerLube - again, if you can find it.

My two cents, based on over 20 years experience:

NO: WD-40 (my reason: it attracts more dirt and dust), Tuner Cleaning Foam Inserts (they fall apart, thank God they are gone!), Blue Shower - remeber that stuff, anyone? I had a Magnavox tuner that was destroyed by that stuff. :sigh:

MAYBE: Silicone (okay on Delrin and other modern polymers used in modern tuners)

YES: Deoxit (oleic acid based), some alcohols, Tuner Grease - a little goes a long way.

Anybody ever seen an MSDS for Tuner Grease, or GC's TunerLube?

Cheers

WD-40 (simply Diesel fuel in a can under pressure) is TERRIBLE on tuners... It's conductive just enough to swamp out a tuned circuit. However, you can use it on a soft cloth to wipe the contacts on older drum & strip tuners. It is also OK to use it slightly on pots, but it will reduce the value of the pot if the pot is high value such as 470K or more.

There are some electronic contact cleaners available that are OK, but the good ones were the ones with 1,1,1 trichloroethane or with 100% TF virgin freon. It's a felony now in California to have or sell those chemicals in spray cans, but maybe in less communist states you can still find it. Look for one that leaves no residue, and one that is non-conductive. These new ones will be flammable, while the good illegal ones are safe to use on powered equipment.

Charles

I tried WD-40 once on a tube radio with an open-plate tuning capacitor. '38 or '39 Crosley if I recall. The radio ceased to work altogether. Like kx just said, WD-40 will detune any open-air tuner completely. The oil in it must be conductive or insulative or dielectric or whatever. So I bought a can of NAPA carb and choke cleaner and gave it a shot. Radio worked perfectly after. Cool thing about it is it really "blasts" away debris. I don't think it leaves any lubrication though, so maybe a dab of non-conductive lithium grease afterwards.

I've been told that WD-40 is a bad idea on contacts that might spark. The residue is flammable. This from a pinball-machine restorer, second hand, but seemed like a reputable source.

Save the WD-40 for your squeaking door hinges.

Interesting.

When I use WD-40, I always unplug whatever I'm going to spray, and I use just a teensy spray and wipe away the excess. I let it sit for a few minutes before I plug it in.

I might look into something specifically designed to clean contacts though. I haven't had a problem yet, but ya never know I guess...

Note pots and tuners are two different things and WD-40 wouldn't "detune" a pot, nor is a pot likely to have sparkworthy currents running thru it, so on pots it might not be too destructive. The original question was for tuners. If I have a scratchy pot and spraying something on it won't get it done, I disassemble it, scuff the wiper with a soft pencil eraser 'til shiny again, clean the carbon ring with plain-ol' drugstore isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips. A dab of 3-in-1 oil (not even 1/10th of a drop) wiped over the carbon ring. Reassemble. Works every time, long-term results.

Carb cleaner works well, BUT: It melts plastic! So it's probably OK on very old tuners, but by the late 50s, watch out. It might melt the moving parts of a tuner into a blob :( . Also it will melt little craters into wood finish, paint, and aluminum in some cases.

But it definitely does do a great job cleaning. It even gets cigarette smoke off, which I've seen badly detune a variable cap tuner.

Charles

Agreed.

Cigarette-smoke tar was mostly what I was dealing with on that radio. After thinking about it, it was a Sparton, same era. Chassis was sticky and black and probably deserved the dumpster, but I was feeling challenged. Carb-cleaner overspray discolored an area of paint on the back of my beater pickup truck, so yes, I guess it's pretty caustic. You wouldn't want to use it in the house or inside a nice TV cabinet. But it gets the job done on a bare chassis, removed and outdoors.

Ah-yep! I've seen an air conditioner fan motor (biggie, 240AC, 2HP job) go up in flames after an all-too-inexperienced public works guy sprayed WD-40 in the lube holes in an attempt to stop a squeak. It got the base fire department to our building real quick.

(We later found it was the squirrel cage blower scraping that caused the squeak.)

I've got a buddy that works as a chemist for one of the local water works - he loves running WD-40 on their spectrometer and seeing that it is remarkably like kerosene/diesel fuel.

As an aside, WD-40 works great in cleaning grease pencil marks off of items I buy at the local thrift stores.

Cheers,

Lighter fluid (naptha) is great for this; and unlike WD-40, lighter fluid evaporates quickly without leaving significant residue. Lighter fluid also does an excellent job at dissolving old gummed-up lubricants in small motors and mechanisms. It does, however, attack *some* types of plastic, so you have to be careful.

This product has always worked fantastic for cleaning and lubricating strip and wafer tuners . The one and only "Blue Shower" http://www.techspray.com/newinfo/1667.pdf