Loading…

Found out I'd been cleaning sensor contacts with the wrong stuff for 6 years | Camera Repairers - Thought Shares

Found out I'd been cleaning sensor contacts with the wrong stuff for 6 years

I was at a workshop in Austin last month and an old Nikon repair guy saw me pull out a q-tip with isopropyl alcohol for a D500 sensor contact cleaning. He stopped me and said "you're stripping the gold plating off, buddy." Turns out you're supposed to use a proper contact cleaner that doesn't eat the coating. I'd been getting intermittent connection issues on maybe 1 in 20 bodies and just blamed the camera. Has anyone else made this mistake or am I the only one who missed that memo?

3 comments

3 Comments

sandra_bennett592mo ago

That guy in Austin saved you a lot of trouble. My story is kind of sideways, but I had this old Minolta film camera I loved and the battery contacts got all crusty. I thought a good scrub with a pencil eraser was the smart move. Worked for a bit, then the corrosion came back worse and the gold was totally gone. Found out later that erasers leave micro scratches that hold moisture and gunk. So yeah, I learned the hard way that gentle cleaning is way better than aggressive scrubbing, even on old gear. Honestly feels like every camera has its own secret rules no one tells you about.

victor7792mo ago

You're not wrong about the eraser thing, but I gotta push back on the alcohol part. I've been using 91% isopropyl on old film cameras for like 15 years now and never had a problem with the gold plating coming off... maybe if you soak it or scrub real hard with a q-tip that's been dripping wet. The trick is to use it sparingly and let it dry fully before you put batteries back in. I tried DeoxIT once and it left this weird greasy film that attracted dust like crazy inside my camera. Different strokes for different folks I guess, but I still swear by the alcohol method if you're careful with it.

jakejones2mo ago

Yo I did the exact same thing for years. Used 91% isopropyl like it was the holy grail. Then a buddy who works at a camera repair shop told me the gold plating is super thin and alcohol just slowly eats it away. Switched to DeoxIT D5 and it fixed most of my random connection dropouts. Night and day difference honestly.