Just realized I've been cleaning sensor contacts wrong for like 5 years

I used to just dab some isopropyl on a q-tip and go to town on those ribbon cable contacts. Then last month I was fixing a Canon 5D classic and the shutter kept erroring out. An old timer at the shop said I was probably leaving residue that messes with the connection. He showed me to use a dry q-tip first then only a tiny bit of alcohol on a fresh one. Took me 3 tries to get it right but the camera works perfect now. Does anyone else have a cleaning habit they had to unlearn the hard way?

3 comments

3 Comments

brooket4322h ago

Hold up. A PENCIL ERASER on lens contacts? That's insane. The rubber probably leaves little bits everywhere too. I've heard of people using too much elbow grease but never someone actually trying to abrade the gold plating off. That's a one way ticket to a paperweight. Your buddy must have stopped doing that after the first lens stopped working, right? Or did he keep at it for a while?

holly70923h ago

Think it's like overthinking anything else in life where our first instinct is to go hard when gentle works way better.

charles83623h ago

Nah but the whole "go hard" thing is a trap for sure. A buddy of mine used to scrub his lens contacts with a pencil eraser to "rough them up" for better connection and wondered why his lenses kept giving ERR messages lol. That dry q-tip first is key though, it picks up the loose junk without pushing alcohol deeper into the connector housing where it can sit and cause intermittent shorts. I think people forget that isopropyl evaporates but it still leaves a microscopic film if you use too much, especially on those old brittle connectors. The other thing I see is folks using 70% alcohol because it's cheaper and that stuff leaves a ton of residue compared to 99% which flashes off way cleaner. Not trying to be that guy but your old timer was spot on, the gentle method with minimal liquid is almost always better for these finicky connections.