Remove cigarette oudour from old amplifier

[bbr620]

hi all! just purchased a new amplifier for my setup and am looking to give the old amplifier away to my girlfriend but i have noticed that the smell of stale cigarette's is wafting out of the air vents and is really overpowering.

as she doesn't smoke in her house, the amp will stink the place out in no time.

question is, has anyone had experience of removing the smell from older equipment and what should i do to clean the smell from it, without damaging any of the caps / resistors.

thanks in advance

[13oots2]

You probably need to get all the dust out of the amp with compressed air, problem is tobacco tar is very sticky and has stuck to just about everything. It will more than likely burn off with time and you may just have to wait and give the amp with a can of air freshener. Perhaps someone else has idea about a safe solvent to use.

[HT Performance]

You can spray with contact cleaner and then blow with compressed air.

[wordwizard]

Take all the covers off (top and bottom) and put in the sun for about a week. Turn it over once a day.

That should start to get the stink out of it.

Next time, best thing is to bypass the "smoker's special".

[steve195527]

burning a bees wax candle in a room gets rid of cigarette odour from a it,maybe you could burn one near it and allow the smoke/odour from that to pass through the amp?

[PeterW.]

hi all! just purchased a new amplifier for my setup and am looking to give the old amplifier away to my girlfriend but i have noticed that the smell of stale cigarette's is wafting out of the air vents and is really overpowering.

as she doesn't smoke in her house, the amp will stink the place out in no time.

question is, has anyone had experience of removing the smell from older equipment and what should i do to clean the smell from it, without damaging any of the caps / resistors.

thanks in advance

Make and model would be important in this case. Your options are - from least to most invasive:

a) Place the amp in a black plastic garbage bag with about one pound of fresh aquarium carbon and about 3 pounds of clay kitty-litter mixed with one pound of fresh baking soda (make appropriate metric adjustments if needed), seal tightly. Place the whole thing in the hot sun for a week.

b) Remove as much sheet-metal as you can. Suspend the amp over a trash-can with a couple of pounds of kitty litter in the bottom. Rinse down with electronic cleaner - making sure that it is 100% volatile and safe for any remaining plastic.

c) As with b) above, but use CRC "Green" Automotive Brake Cleaner. AGAIN - test on plastics before using.

And, if none of the above work, as with b), but put the thing on the *TOP* shelf of your dishwasher and run it using a scant teaspoon of detergent. Dry for 72 hours in the sun. For the record, I have done this more than a dozen times and never lost anything yet - it does work.

WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE OPTIONS, you will have to clean and lubricate any contacts, switches and controls. It is also best to remove/disconnect any Molex or MPC plugs prior to treatment. Check any relays to make sure they are dry and clean as well. Or, protect them during the process with silicon or waterproof tape. Use a Sharpie to mark any paper labels (which may be removed) and take high-resolution pictures from all angles - a good idea in general.

Consider the alternative to the above options is landfill - and your courage will be increased.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[cairns4me]

I bought a Cambridge Audio CA640P phono pre from an eboy seller in the uk last Nov.
It arrived here in late Jan last. Opened the package & nearly fell over at the stench of PERFUME & STALE SMOKE! Seller had realised the thing was rancid with smoke stink so they Baptised the machine, its packaging AND instruction book with " poifume" then with it being packed-up for 6 weeks or so it was really overpowering. So I opened the unit and sat circuit board on its own in sun undercover outside for 2 weeks. Used Spray & Wipe type cleaner on inside & outside of housing & sat outside 2 weeks. Used DeOxit on ALL switching and plug contacts and RCA sockets for removal of tar-the cloth showed thick brown/black deposit was coming off the in & out sockets. Then I sprayed a non-conductive / non-residual electronics cleaner for circuit boards all over the board. It was all better after the 2 weeks.To be as bad as it was the unit had to have been in a room where smoking was constant...one of those where the doors and windows are never opened... and they used cheap-a.r.s.e.d poifume-the really pungent stuff..from a "cheap Charlie's Singapore Bazaar" type of quality emporium...haha....lol

[Jarfly]

Couple of tricks I have used to remove the smell from some cars.

You will need to be careful, but...

Place amp in large plastic bag, add a jar of unused coffee grinds. Make sure you make this spill proof, as much as possible. The grounds will absorb the odors in about 2 days.

next:
Same steps as above, but use a spill proof container of plain ole white vinegar. Again, it will take about 2 days to absorb the odors.

Of course opening up the amp and getting rid of any accumulated dust will help speed up the process.

Cheers!

[fscl]

YUCK......

According to the wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

Ntine is hydroscopic and miscible with water...... Which means that most vinyl cleaning homebrews are capable of cleaning off N...... If you want to standardize......

My cleaning fall back is Fantastic. Good on metal, plastics etc..... with a slight amount of aromatics to hide the N smell.

Attack the amplifier with surface area in mind. So as mentioned above, take off all of the covers, ie top (which is usually 3 sided) and clean the backside. If you can remove the bottom plate (usually revealing the PCB soldered side), I use the Fantastic liberally on that too.

Now, the tricky part, I spend time with the amplifier heat sinks. Love those machined fins...... Another piece(s) consisting of large surface area (for cooling). If these run hot (ie loud), then the N aromatics will usually cook off of these and that ambiance of the smokey, small, crowded jazz club is duly simulated.

I attack these with a Q-Tip loaded with Fantastic and rub / clean till there is no more amber color on the cotton.

Hopefully, this will rid the amp of toxic N smell. Or for some realism, leave some surfaces untouched, put on J. Coltrane Live @ Village Vanguard, close your eyes and let the sound stage take over......

Of course, the outside of the unit is cleaned first...... Forgot to mention, as it's the first thing I do with vintage equipment......

Good luck.

Fred