Best way to clean a female RCA jack?

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JoeDJ

JoeDJ

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Joined 2011
#1
Recently, the left channel on my my beloved NAD "C-350" amp intermittently started to get real low and distorted.

I should say that I have all my sources are fed into a source switch and that is connected to the CD input on the NAD as that input is where it defaults at every power up.

Long story short.........
I traced it to a bad RCA connection at the NAD's CD input .
Plunging it and unplugging it a few times cured it...... at least for now
I assume the jack had a bad connection due to its age, and possible lack of use before I got the amp.

My question is, what is the best way to clean the internal contact on a female RCA Jack?
 
#2
Just a cotton bud and methylated spirits, or isopropyl alcohol and vigorous rubbing should get a sizeable chunk of gunk off. Repeat process with clean buds until no more gunk comes off.

If bud is too big, unravel some of the cotton, and wind that around the end of a toothpick, tightly. If the cotton comes off the end just dig it out with the toothpick.
 
#4
Hi.

Sometimes, really rare in fact, metal tube at the and of female RCA socket could break.
I've seen it few times via servicing old amps. Then only way is to change a sockets.
Of course Yoy should check connection beetween socket and main board, because of pushing cable into socket, from time to time solder breaking on PCB.
 
#6
^thermal cycling produces solder cracks around pins at the PCB, I've seen this many times
esp on components fixed to chassis or heat sinks then to PCB.
mass produced integrated amps and plate amps with poor air flow are most susceptible.
reflow solder on all pins for whole connecter strip after tightening all mounting screws. This is a problem because completed PCB assy is screwed down after wave soldering connector putting stress on the pins.
 
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#7
In my case it seems to have been just a "cleaning" issue and all is fine now but, I still want to clean the RCA jacks it further .
Thanks for the input.🙂


BTW, one of the first things I did when first getting the amp was to remove the cover and inspect everything thoroughly and it all looks great.,
However I could nor see not the solder on the bottom of the CB of course..
 
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#10
KatieandDad said:
If it really needs a good clean then I use a cocktail stick wrapped with extremely fine P1800 wet and dry paper. But unless it is vintage I just replace the socket with a decent gold plated new
one.
Click to expand...

Actually, unless the male jack is also gold the different metals in contact with each other can possibly cause some corrosion . Just one gold contact does nothing good. .
This fact is often over looked.

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

I like your idea on how to clean it though as iso sometimes can't remove everything .. 🙂
 
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#13
OK........

I feel like kicking myself in the butt.......

Long story short..... it turned out to be a bad RCA cable that barely has a connection in left channel center contact and the other contacts had varying resistance. Who knows what is under the molded plastic end. This was the cable feeding everything into my NAD amp input.

I should have checked the cable sooner but I made the false assumption that since it was a relatively high end cable, it was fine.

So I replaced it with a cheap, run of the mill RCA cable that has consistent low resistance at all contact points and, it sounds great with no drop outs.
 
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#15
Mooly said:
Bit of kitchen paper soaked in iso and shoved up 'thole does the job I find 😀

Wet and dry 😱 there goes any plating.
Click to expand...

The plating won't matter if you apply some PB blaster to a Qtip (pull some of the cotton off) and wipe it around inside. It will stop any further corrosion. A gentler approach is to use a small brass gun brush. I think one for a 22 will work. Mines not lost, it's just not found.
 
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