I was cleaning every board with isopropyl and a toothbrush for way too long

I mean, I had this old Pioneer receiver from the 80s on my bench last week, and the left channel kept cutting out. I spent maybe two hours scrubbing every single contact point with 91% isopropyl and a new brush, but the problem came right back. The tip off was when I finally looked at the board under my magnifier and saw a tiny, almost invisible crack in a trace near the main power cap. I was just cleaning stuff that didn't need it. Has anyone else wasted a bunch of time on a cleaning ritual before actually looking for the real fault?

3 comments

3 Comments

barnes.mary1mo ago

Cleaning ritual" is right. I did that on a Game Gear. Scrubbed the whole board spotless. It still wouldn't turn on. The fix was a single bad capacitor I missed because I was so focused on cleaning every inch. Felt pretty dumb.

emmashah11d ago

My old car had a weird electrical drain that kept killing the battery. I replaced the alternator and cleaned every ground connection, but it turned out to be the trunk light switch stuck on. You can look right at the problem and not see it.

fiona_clark1mo ago

Ugh, I know that exact feeling. I got so hung up on cleaning corrosion off an old radio board once that I didn't even see the cracked solder joint right next to it. Spent hours on the wrong thing. Sometimes you just have to step back and look at the whole picture again... it's easy to miss the real problem when you're zeroed in on one task.