I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external cabinet is 9.7+ and is
fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a good 'stuff' to remove
hard cased surface dust and some minor staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?

Dave wrote:
I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external cabinet is 9.7+ and is
fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a good 'stuff' to remove
hard cased surface dust and some minor staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?

409 from the supermarket is a good first step. Gooey stuff may need some
naptha to get off.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Dave" wrote in message
. ..
I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external cabinet is 9.7+ and
is fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a good 'stuff' to
remove hard cased surface dust and some minor staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?


I like Simple Green too and it smells good and is harmless.

BH

On Mar 10, 6:30 am, Dave wrote:
I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external cabinet is 9.7+ and is
fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a good 'stuff' to remove
hard cased surface dust and some minor staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?

I use some stuff called "Hood Cleaner" made by RubaChem Inc. Computer
maintenance division, PO Box 9841, Englewood, NJ 07631,
1-800-548-3285.
This is a foaming type cleaner. You spray it on and let it sit for a
while. It will loosen up the cooked on dirt etc. Seems to be real safe
on plastics etc. I would not use it on silk screen labels, especially
on dials that type. Avoid spraying on components that can absorm
moisture. Spray it on a cloth and wipe around sensitive components or
areas.
It really works wonders on cigarette smoked up plastic. Hope this
helps.
73 de Randy, wb5kcm

Tried and true method:

Remove all the tubes and anything else that can be taken off or out. Fill a
squirt bottle, preferably a nice big one with adjustable nozzle, with
denatured alcohol (about $12/gallon) and give the thing a shower. Keep
spraying in every nook and cranny until the runoff is clear. Warning - you
will go through a lot of alcohol so buy two gallons. The adjustable nozzle
helps a lot; some areas you will want a wide spray and others you will want
a thin strong stream. After the runoff is clear, keep spraying some more.
Then some more. Keep bathing the thing until you run out of alcohol or your
hand starts to get cramps. Another warning - do this outside - the fumes
are strong although not particularly toxic.

Then let it dry for a few days. It will come out perfectly fine, with
absolutely no harmful affects. I would NOT use water, although I hear
people do it.

This is also the best way to remove cigarette smoke smell and tar from
electronics. The alcohol dissolves the brown gunk like nothing else; it's
amazing.


"Dave" wrote in message
. ..
I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external cabinet is 9.7+ and
is fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a good 'stuff' to
remove hard cased surface dust and some minor staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?

Unrevealed Source wrote:
Tried and true method:

Remove all the tubes and anything else that can be taken off or out. Fill a
squirt bottle, preferably a nice big one with adjustable nozzle, with
denatured alcohol (about $12/gallon) and give the thing a shower. Keep
spraying in every nook and cranny until the runoff is clear. Warning - you
will go through a lot of alcohol so buy two gallons. The adjustable nozzle
helps a lot; some areas you will want a wide spray and others you will want
a thin strong stream. After the runoff is clear, keep spraying some more.
Then some more. Keep bathing the thing until you run out of alcohol or your
hand starts to get cramps. Another warning - do this outside - the fumes
are strong although not particularly toxic.

Oh wow! Be careful with alcohol, it will wash all of the wax out of any coils,
and capacitors, and simply destroy any plexyglas or lucite insulators. I use
isopropyl for some very careful spot cleaning, but water and a good detergent
like Simple Green is 1000 fold safer for the electronics.

You don't want to take your garden hose to the thing, but a spray bottle
full of Simple Green, and a brush to help out will allow you to selectively
clean up the mess, and then wash it down with deionized water. A pump up
garden sprayer meant for herbicide is just perfect for this job.

When you are done, put the radio in a cardboard box that is open on both
sides, so it is like a tunnel, and put an electric heater that has a fan
on one end, and let it dry for 24 hours.

-Chuck

Not arguing with you, but I've never had this problem, Chuck. Used it
dozens, maybe hundreds of times. Denatured alcohol has proven (for me,
anyway) absolutely harmless to everything I've sprayed it on.

"Chuck Harris" wrote in message
...
Unrevealed Source wrote:
Tried and true method:

Remove all the tubes and anything else that can be taken off or out.
Fill a
squirt bottle, preferably a nice big one with adjustable nozzle, with
denatured alcohol (about $12/gallon) and give the thing a shower. Keep
spraying in every nook and cranny until the runoff is clear. Warning -
you
will go through a lot of alcohol so buy two gallons. The adjustable
nozzle
helps a lot; some areas you will want a wide spray and others you will
want
a thin strong stream. After the runoff is clear, keep spraying some
more.
Then some more. Keep bathing the thing until you run out of alcohol or
your
hand starts to get cramps. Another warning - do this outside - the
fumes
are strong although not particularly toxic.

Oh wow! Be careful with alcohol, it will wash all of the wax out of any
coils,
and capacitors, and simply destroy any plexyglas or lucite insulators. I
use
isopropyl for some very careful spot cleaning, but water and a good
detergent
like Simple Green is 1000 fold safer for the electronics.

You don't want to take your garden hose to the thing, but a spray bottle
full of Simple Green, and a brush to help out will allow you to
selectively
clean up the mess, and then wash it down with deionized water. A pump up
garden sprayer meant for herbicide is just perfect for this job.

When you are done, put the radio in a cardboard box that is open on both
sides, so it is like a tunnel, and put an electric heater that has a fan
on one end, and let it dry for 24 hours.

-Chuck

Unrevealed Source wrote:
Not arguing with you, but I've never had this problem, Chuck. Used it
dozens, maybe hundreds of times. Denatured alcohol has proven (for me,
anyway) absolutely harmless to everything I've sprayed it on.

I made a bunch of front panel overlays for one customer. They were plexiglas,
and they were engraved with my little CNC mill. I painted them black with
a satin finish Krylon paint, and put the white lettering in with latex paint.
The latex hardened a little too fast, so I wiped the lettering off with alcohol.
That destroyed the baked on Krylon paint. So, thinking that I could salvage the
whole mess, I put the panels in to soak in alcohol, and used a brush to
remove the paint. It worked great, until big cracks started to appear in the
plexiglas front panels. The cracks started to grow from the holes where the
controls passed through. It was a total loss, I had to remake all of the
panels.

Ever since, I have been very careful with alcohol on paint and plexiglas.

The other place alcohol has caused me problems, is it wipes the lettering
off of HP test equipment, and it wipes the black chassis paint off of old
DEC computers (eg. PDP8's, etc.)

And alcohol will remove the color bands from some of the older epoxy dipped
resistors. They used to be marked after they were measured, and the paint
they used was not very good. I found this out because...

I use alcohol to remove rosin flux from PCB's that I manufacture without
a single problem. New parts are immune to its effects.... but also to water's
effects... so I very often use a water clean flux, and a 4 quart ultrasonic
cleaner.

Ultrasonic cleaners, will kill older hybrids, such as used by HP in some
of their mid 1980's test equipment... Everything has its problems, sometimes.

-Chuck

Note, I import 4 quart heated Ultrasonic Cleaners if anyone is interested.
All microprocessor controlled, and very effective for cleaning larger assemblies.
$500 in QTY 1.

"wb5kcm" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Mar 10, 6:30 am, Dave wrote:
I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external
cabinet is 9.7+ and is
fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a
good 'stuff' to remove
hard cased surface dust and some minor
staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?

I use some stuff called "Hood Cleaner" made by RubaChem
Inc. Computer
maintenance division, PO Box 9841, Englewood, NJ 07631,
1-800-548-3285.
This is a foaming type cleaner. You spray it on and let it
sit for a
while. It will loosen up the cooked on dirt etc. Seems to
be real safe
on plastics etc. I would not use it on silk screen labels,
especially
on dials that type. Avoid spraying on components that can
absorm
moisture. Spray it on a cloth and wipe around sensitive
components or
areas.
It really works wonders on cigarette smoked up plastic.
Hope this
helps.
73 de Randy, wb5kcm

FWIW, I worked for Hewlett-Packard a great many years
ago in a factory repair facility. We routinely washed entire
instruments using a mild solition of dishwashing detergent
in water. This was sprayed using a paint spray gun. After
washing the chassis was rinsed off using plain water and
then blown out with compressed air. Then it was baked in an
electric oven running at about 130F for a minumum of 48
hours. I usually left stuff in for a longer time. I don't
remember any more if we had any kind of brush but I suspect
we did.
Before washing certain parts were removed. This
included meters, rubber stuff (because of the heat) and
hermetically sealed transformers and inductors. The reason
for the latter was that if the transformer did not have a
perfect seal (and many did not) some moisture would get in
and wouldn't bake out causing short. This was a long time
ago but I don't remember that any instruments were not
washable. Note that the detergent is the kind for hand
washing, not dishwasher detergent.
At least some of these instruments had ferrite core
inductors. I don't rememeber any difficulty with these but
would be careful nonetheless because there are many kinds of
ferrites and some may not like getting wet.
Most of the spray on cleaners appear to be about the
same as the "streak free" type glass cleaners using butyl
alcohol. While this is safe on many materials it _will_
attack certain plastics so I avoid it for anything but
glass.

--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

TU Richard.

Richard Knoppow wrote:

"wb5kcm" wrote in message
ups.com...

On Mar 10, 6:30 am, Dave wrote:

I have just started to restore a HQ-145. The external
cabinet is 9.7+ and is
fine [for now]

The chassis needs a good mechanical clean up. What is a
good 'stuff' to remove
hard cased surface dust and some minor
staining/discoloration?

If the 'stuff' exists, is it commonly available?

I use some stuff called "Hood Cleaner" made by RubaChem
Inc. Computer
maintenance division, PO Box 9841, Englewood, NJ 07631,
1-800-548-3285.
This is a foaming type cleaner. You spray it on and let it
sit for a
while. It will loosen up the cooked on dirt etc. Seems to
be real safe
on plastics etc. I would not use it on silk screen labels,
especially
on dials that type. Avoid spraying on components that can
absorm
moisture. Spray it on a cloth and wipe around sensitive
components or
areas.
It really works wonders on cigarette smoked up plastic.
Hope this
helps.
73 de Randy, wb5kcm


FWIW, I worked for Hewlett-Packard a great many years
ago in a factory repair facility. We routinely washed entire
instruments using a mild solition of dishwashing detergent
in water. This was sprayed using a paint spray gun. After
washing the chassis was rinsed off using plain water and
then blown out with compressed air. Then it was baked in an
electric oven running at about 130F for a minumum of 48
hours. I usually left stuff in for a longer time. I don't
remember any more if we had any kind of brush but I suspect
we did.
Before washing certain parts were removed. This
included meters, rubber stuff (because of the heat) and
hermetically sealed transformers and inductors. The reason
for the latter was that if the transformer did not have a
perfect seal (and many did not) some moisture would get in
and wouldn't bake out causing short. This was a long time
ago but I don't remember that any instruments were not
washable. Note that the detergent is the kind for hand
washing, not dishwasher detergent.
At least some of these instruments had ferrite core
inductors. I don't rememeber any difficulty with these but
would be careful nonetheless because there are many kinds of
ferrites and some may not like getting wet.
Most of the spray on cleaners appear to be about the
same as the "streak free" type glass cleaners using butyl
alcohol. While this is safe on many materials it _will_
attack certain plastics so I avoid it for anything but
glass.