Pure alcohol, do you folks use that product to clean equipment? Or do the seasoned party chiefs end up drinking it all? 😉
How do you clean your equipment? Any tips?
** moved to Land Surveying **
Not sure what you mean by pure alcohol. I use rubbing alcohol to get the grunge off of instruments. Usually on knobs, handles, and buttons that get a lot of contact with grungy sweaty fingers. Put a little alcohol on a rag then scrub. A q-tip with alcohol for tight places.
James
> I use rubbing alcohol to get the grunge off of instruments.
At the end of the week I use bourbon to erase the drudgery. (Truthfully the following also work for me: beer, wine, hard cider, scotch, gin, assorted brandies and eaux de vie, and Pimms in the summer)
I use to do (inside plant) telecommunications work in a former life. Before ESS (Electronic Switching Systems) the phone systems in the US worked with mechanical relays. Gold was the only metal that wouldn't corrode so the majority of the critical relays had gold contacts. These relays required cleaning from time to time. The only "solvent" that left no residue was ethyl alcohol.
Bell Systems provided all their switching centers with cases of ethyl alcohol. The nature of the cleaning prohibited the use of denatures (something to make it poison to humans). Soooo... we all had access to cases of 12 1-quart bottles of "Everclear". 95% pure grain alcohol. They had no tax stamps but the boxes were all clearly marked "FOR INDUSTIAL USE ONLY - NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION".
Cleaning contacts was the least favorite thing to do...getting all twisted up behind the mainframe with a Q-tip required a contortionist. Funny thing was that all those bottles would sit around all year. Then around the holidays the bottles would begin to disappear...Someone would have to re-order more "solvent" after January 1st.
BTW - Ethyl alcohol will "melt" through a Styrofoam cup...be forewarned.
As for survey instruments..I've always used a lint less cotton material (old t-shirt) and Windex on both the lenses and hardware. Not very scientific but never had anything negative come of it. Just make sure no cleaner gets into any of the "works" and always keep some light machine oil around.
Lucky
Your week ends? At the end of the month I get to drown my frustrations.
I use an old tooth brush and/or other brush, warm to hot water and sanitizing towelettes.
B-)
