Gave my Marantz 2230 a bath.

mufster

mufster

Well-Known Member
It really did have the worse tobacco smell in the history of all things tobacco smelling. I have left it for 5 months and it has not got any better. It stunk my house out when switched on for 30 mins of so. I did that every night for a month and my wife was getting really worked up with the foul smell. So I figured it was going to the trash. Anyway, I decided the last resort was to stick it in the bath and spray it head to foot with bathroom foam cleaner. I left it 10 mins and showered it down with warm water. Put it on a towel and turned it over every hour for about 8 hours. Then stripped the front plate and bottom plate off it and used two fans on it each side for about 6 hours.

I have now parked it at the back of my living room and plan to leave it to dry out fully. Extreme I know, and it may be dead when I get around to powering it back on. But I figure it was going to the trash anyway and this was last chance saloon. So what do you reckon. Dead? Living? Either way, how long would you leave to dry out before powering on?

Go easy. It stunk like a dead thing that had died again.

Paul
 
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hmm...

/lurk

i bet most of it will dry out ok...it will need to dry totally..but hasn't this probably (??? AFAIK) detuned the tuner?
 
I would wait a week before plugging it in. It's gonna fire right up. I don't know that the resonant circuits will be de-tuned, unless the coils are on paper cores.

Here in Pa. Dutch country, they give kids tomato juice baths when they get squirted by a skunk.

Seriously, they use a product in hospitals called Nilodor (or maybe Odornil). Just a tiny bottle with this heavy greasy liquid. Put a drop or two on a cloth and leave it in the stinky area for a day or two. Works wonders on vomit, cat pee, and grosser things. You never know.
 
I think you have nothing to worry: sometimes you can't avoid the full bath, but maybe drying it up with an air compressor would have been a better choice.

I used to bath dirty computer electronic boards for about 10 years and never had a problem with it. What was working before was always working after the treatment.

I am a bit more reluctant to wash vintage audio equipment because most of the times you cannot completely separate the boards from the chassis and the transformer, but sometimes I still do it when it's necessary, just as in your case.

But make sure it's completely dried up before powering it on.
 
A couple of weeks ago I found website where a knowledgeable person used dish wash product and luke warm water to rinse the boards of his Quad 303 power amp and it reportedly worked just fine afterwards. Google will get you there, no doubt. I did not try it with my own 303 - I resorted to lots of Q-tips and a brush.
Don't know what a bath will do to a tuner, where there's a lot of stuff inside that has water fear (strings, coils, bulbs, varicaps, etc.)
 
mufster said:
It really did have the worse tobacco smell in the history of all things tobacco smelling. I have left it for 5 months and it has not got any better. It stunk my house out when switched on for 30 mins of so. I did that every night for a month and my wife was getting really worked up with the foul smell. So I figured it was going to the trash. Anyway, I decided the last resort was to stick it in the bath and spray it head to foot with bathroom foam cleaner. I left it 10 mins and showered it down with warm water. Put it on a towel and turned it over every hour for about 8 hours. Then stripped the front plate and bottom plate off it and used two fans on it each side for about 6 hours.

I have now parked it at the back of my living room and plan to leave it to dry out fully. Extreme I know, and it may be dead when I get around to powering it back on. But I figure it was going to the trash anyway and this was last chance saloon. So what do you reckon. Dead? Living? Either way, how long would you leave to dry out before powering on?

Go easy. It stunk like a dead thing that had died again.

Paul
Click to expand...

There are rare occasions using water solution is necessary to clean up the mess.
One case for me was a 16 channel mixing console. Someone spilled a big cup of cappuccino inside of it,
and allowed it to sit. I tried to use aerosol electronics cleaner. But it actually made a bigger mess out of things.
So I used a combo of simple green and distilled water, along with a soft brush.
Then follow up with a rinse with more distilled water afterwards.

The quicker you're able to remove all of the moisture the better.
If done carefully using some heat to help evaporate the hidden moisture
will not hurt the unit. In some cases I simply used a blow dryer.
When weather permitting, sunlight does a nice job on a warm day also.

This one might scare some guys, but I've done it successfully without trouble.
In some cases I set the oven to its lowest temp (with mine it's 150 degrees.)
then after it reaches temp "shut it off". After turning it off, I then just set the whole unit (or circuit board)
inside the warm oven and allow it to cool down to room temperature.
 
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mufster said:
......... So I figured it was going to the trash. Anyway, I decided the last resort was to stick it in the bath and spray it head to foot with bathroom foam cleaner. I left it 10 mins and showered it down with warm water.......
Click to expand...


It will be interesting to hear how this turns out. You may have zero issues. I would have done this job using liberal amounts of isopropyl alcohol and a soft brush with the unit standing on end so as to drain onto a rag or paper towel. And would have avoided the tuning capacitor

Never heard of anyone using bathroom cleaner. IMHO potential areas of concern would be the tuning capacitor (very sensitive) and the insides of pots, trimpots, and switches both the contact areas and lubricants. If some of the cleaning product found its way inside and was not rinsed away there might possibly be a film residue.

If there are issues when the unit is fired back up I would use something (probably Deoxit Faderlube, maybe D5) inside the pots and switches. If the tuner has issues I believe that safe ways to clean them have been discussed here at AK.

Good luck with it :thmbsp:

Please let us know how it works out. And please don't put it in the trash. This piece would be wanted by someone regardless of any issues...
 
Had the same problem with my Pioneer sa-9500II. The outside was clean as a whistle when I bought it, but it was demonstrated outside on a cool fall day and I didn't smell anything. Took it home and opened it up to deoxit and ,wow, brown goo everywhere. Cleaned it with half a bottle of dawn dish washing soap. Turned the green soap to brown goo and after 2 short evenings of cleaning, rinsed it with water working it with a soft paint brush. I blew it out with my compressor, than hit with a hair dryer for ten minutes, then let it sit open for 3 days with a fan blowing on it for the first day. Overkill I'm sure, but she fired right up and no smell at all. We powerwash machines at work, hit it with compressed air and let it sit a few days and put em back into service. I was still nervous though because this was my amp. Just make sure everything is dry. Good luck.
 
I've had foul smelling units from smoke to mouse piss the benefit well from a top and bottom removal. Windex wash, crumpled news papers stuffed into the cavities. Then sat on it's side to dry. Then a fan on low sucking air through it in the garage for a good while.


Barney
 
I have washed several receivers using a cleaning agent and water to rinse. You don't want to spray the tuner with any force and keep away from the transformer as much as possible. It not like submerging the unit. Let it air dry for a few days and you will be fine.

All the boards were cleaned by submersion at the factory when it was built to remove the solder flux. So if it was so damaging to wash the boards we would not have any operating equipment.
 
The danger with "Water" is not just the water, but the items in the water, especially chlorine. Components like transistors and IC's, while they appear sealed, are not sealed well at the point where the pins enter the component. Chlorine is a typical additive from city water supplies, and loves to attack copper. Drying it off as soon as possible (blowing out first with a compressor is best). to prevent the ability of the water and its chemical agents from starting the corrosion process.
 
Things that don't do well in the presence of moisture or water:

pots and switches
coils
trimmer resistors
transformers

everything else can be washed but should be dried quickly.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I'm soooo nervous about powering it up. It has been 10 days now. Leave it longer or give it a go?
 
Well I thought long and hard about it and in the end my fear won over. I have removed the cover and I am going to leave it until the end of this month before powering it up. I'm thinking waiting an extra 2 weeks may make all the difference.
 
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