Cleaning 1/4 in. inputs

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MG Eddie

MG Eddie

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Does anyone know a good way of cleaning 1/4 in. inputs on a guitar amp? I've already gone and tore the whole thing apart so that I could clean the pots with contact spray. Any help would be appreciated.:eek:
 
If its that dirty why not simply replace it. It'll only cost you a few quid. What is the problem anyway? why do you want to clean it? a little more clarity may help us to help you thanks
 
Its an amp that someone gave me a 19w practice randall. It starts to cut out after playing it for a bit and I was hoping that a bit of TLC would help.
 
Ok so now I'm just getting a loud buzzing noise every time i turn it on with or w/o a cable in it.
 
I fixed the amp, although the distortion channel sounds like a clean channel and the clean channel sounds like its at half volume.
 
SLM tech support once told me to take a 1/4" plug and ram it in and out of the jack several times. It worked.
 
That sounds dangerous! Although after resoldering a capacitor and one of the power supply wires my amp is fixed. It may be a crappy tiny little amp but its fixed! I only say crappy because it is made by randall and it came with a washburn guitar, the speaker on the amp even says so. This guitar/amp package was a gift from one of my girlfriends friends who got cut off from donating to various thrift stores because she donated too much!
 
How would that be dangerous? You're gonna insert a plug into the jack a zillion times over the course of a lifetime anyway.
 
This also applies to any sound gear. Interconnecting cables should periodically be disconnected and plugged in and out a few times. This can help to clean off dirt or oxidation which can build up, and may over time deteriorate the audio signal. Otherwise, you can use something like one of the Caig Deoxit products.

Paul
 
I was just joking about the dangerous part. It does make perfect sense as a way of maintaining gear.
 
You can actually get specialist burnishing tools for cleaning jacks....like THIS.

Probably doesn't do much more than spray cleaner and jamming a jack in and out though...

(We used to have jackfields with literally thousands of sockets...used to run through it with one of the burnishing tool every six months or so.)
 
Bobbsy said:
Probably doesn't do much more than spray cleaner and jamming a jack in and out though...
Click to expand...

Yeah...I just always use a spare plug for cleaning. Take some DeOxit solution on a small rag, rub the plug, and then insert into the jack a few times...rub the plug into the rag, move on to the next jack. Works fine for any type of connection, as there's always a male/female component, which makes it easy.
I clean all my patchbays this way too.

What you want to check on guitar amps, is if the jack has a grounding spring/leaf or not. Some are just straight 1/4" TS jacks, but there are many that will use one with a ground spring that intentionally shorts the jack to ground when nothing is inserted.
Those springs can become intermittent or dirty too, since they also are making/breaking contact. If there is problem there, you can get lots of noise even when a plug is in the jack...the spring may be still making intermittent contact because of failure or "dirt".
 
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