Recording - December 2009 - 32

Times are gettin’ hard—gee, you noticed it too? Tough times put a crimp in our obsession; even if your name isn’t Lehman, this probably isn’t the best time to spring for a big gear purchase. Bad times call for creative solutions; we don’t want to give this thing up completely. So it’s time to regroup; maybe haul out the old mixer that’s been in the basement since before the kids arrived. Or maybe look at Ebay with a gimlet eye; it’s possible to get older gear for peanuts if you’re careful. We’re not talking “vintage” here, just old. Why bother? Because some of that older stuff, properly rehabbed, can outperform a lot of modern equivalents. If you take a gadget in workingbut-worn condition and do some simple cleanup and replacement work on it, you can wind up with a more-than-respectable piece of gear. A few restrictions: In this article I’ll be talking about small-signal solid-state devices. While the basic rules apply to all electronics, tubed gear has its own set of rules (and hazards) deserving separate treatment. Power amps have pitfalls of their own; goof up one of them, and your monitor speakers are history. So we’ll be talking about the smaller stuff: mic preamps, mixers, compressors, eqs, etc.. to let water drip anyplace; be extra careful around fader slots. Okay, let’s make the connectors better, through chemistry. The secret potions are DeoxIt® (a super contact cleaner) and PreservIt® (which coats contacts to inhibit oxidation). Both are made by the Caig Corp., and are available in electronic tinkering stores and hi-fi shops, or online. For this kind of work, small bottles of liquid are preferable to aerosol cans; these chemicals are oily, and the aerosol gets goo everywhere. You’ll need a box of QTips®, too—the brand-name, with cardboard shafts, not plastic or wooden ones. Dip the end of a Q-Tip into the DeoxIt, squeeze against the inside of the bottle until it’s nearly dry, and apply liquid sparingly to 1/4" jacks, the pins of male XLR connectors, and the outsides of RCA connectors. Break a Q-Tip in half, dip the broken end of the cardboard shaft into the DeOxit, and apply to the holes of female XLR connectors and RCA connectors. (The cardboard absorbs just enough DeOxit to work as a “mini-swab”.) Wait at least 5 minutes, then clean off the DeoxIt (and a lot of crud) using a clean Q-Tip, either the cotton end or a broken-off shaft. Repeat using PreservIt, New (or maybe better) B Y PA U L J . S TA M L E R Good As Creative rehab for tough times The first step Let’s get cracking. The first step, of course, is to make sure the piece actually works; we’re talking rehab here, not major repair. Plug it in, hook it up, turn it on, run some signal to the input. Is there smoke? Does signal, even imperfect signal, appear at the output? If there’s signal and no smoke we’re ready to roll; if not, the piece needs major repairs—which is a different article. I’m going to assume here that you know the basics of soldering and have a soldering iron (not a gun!). Check the sidebar for some tips on the more esoteric art of desoldering. The average piece of old gear passes signal, but the controls are scratchy and noisy, the jacks are dubious, intermittent and encrusted with crud, and the switches are iffy. It also may hum more than it should. Rude mechanicals Begin by cleaning it up. Open the box, saving the screws in an old medicine bottle. Take a vacuum cleaner, set it to gentle suction, and vacuum inside and out to remove dust, fuzz and mouse hairs. If necessary, follow the vacuuming with a few blasts of “canned air”. While it’s open, look for loose or wiggling wires; if you see any, solder them back in place. While you’re at it, go over the outside of the piece with a barely damp paper towel, to remove the grime of years. Be very careful notRECORDING DECEMBER 2009 and you’ll have drastically improved the connectors’ connections. If the equipment uses edge connectors, you should clean them too. Remove the circuit board from its connector and apply DeoxIt to the edge terminals. Slip it in and out of the connector once or twice, then leave it out for 5 minutes. Plug, unplug, clean the edge terminals with a QTip, apply PreservIt, and replace. In effect, you’ve used the board itself as an applicator for its edge connector. You can do the same with the plugs at the ends of ribbon cables. Control freak Time for a pot party. Controls—faders, eq controls, and the like, known collectively as potentiometers, or “pots”—accumulate crud on the carbon or plastic resistance tracks, and on the metal sliders that roll across the tracks. The solution in this case is another Caig product, CaiLube®, a combined contact cleaner and lubricant for pots and switches. Unfortunately, with CaiLube you’re pretty much limited to using aerosol, so you should take steps to minimize the mess. Use the thin plastic tube, or “schnoz”, which fits into the hole on the spray dispenser, to make sure the spray is concentrated on a narrow area; cover the surroundings with a dropcloth equivalent, such as rags or paper towels. CaiLube’s supposed to be pretty harmless, but you still might want to wear a face mask to avoid inhalation.

Recording - December 2009

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