Hi, I am trying to repair a few problems on my old Fatar keyboard controller (SL-880).
It has an intermittent push button switch and also the mod wheel and pitch bend intermittently puts out control data when I am not touching it. Sometimes I can quiet it by exercising the controls but then later on it will start putting out midi data.
I thought I’d just spray some Deoxit Red in all 3 and exercise them but I’m not sure if it’s safe to do.
How do you determine if a switch or pot is safe to clean with Deoxit Red ?
It can be pretty hard to know for sure. You can also try canned compressed air before Deoxit to see if that’s any help. Most of the time Deoxit works fine but there have been a few cases in my experience where it was the final catalyst in completely destroying the pot. These cases were in vintage Arp Odysseys where some pots handled the Deoxit just fine then with others the carbon layer in the pot wiped right off resulting in an open circuit. This may have more to do with what the pots were previously cleaned or lubricated with causing damage before the Deoxit.
It also might be preferable to use Deoxit F5 (green) because it contains a bit of lubricant to help pots maintain a smooth feeling.
If cleaning doesn’t help we might be able to find new replacement parts if you fill out our parts request form!
Deoxit D5 (I assume that is, what you mean with “Red”) is for switches and sockets only - not for potentiometers.
Deoxit F5 and F100 both are for potentiometers, but work for switches too.
Additionally to everything which @Travis wrote correctly:
In general scratchy potentiometers typically don’t suffer dirt on the resistance trace, but the oxidation on the center copper trace. And this oxidation will return again, if the potentiometer is not a sealed and closed type. The same is valid for switches
So I recommend to replace the potentiometers and switches with new sealed ones.