ugh - mixing desk spillage

thomasw88

At last nights gig, a glass of ginger beer n lime ended up on my mixing desk (only fortuntate thing was it was 10 minutes before the end of the night..)  .  there was an unholy noise going on,  meters going all over the place.  I switched it off, wiped it down as best i could and then poured a whole load of liquid out of it. 

been in the airing cupboard since i got back.

any suggestions about  what to do? ie should i leave it in the airing cupboard, and if so for how long, should i attempt to clean it etc etc.

vasselmeyer

Sounds like a good time to call the insurance company .

sweepy

I'd be off to Maplins and buy industrial amounts of servisol and break the screwdrivers out first

ICBM

If you don't want to strip it down to clean it all out - which could be a huge job - and you're not confident it will survive being turned on again - I wouldn't be…. you're actually best to deliberately wash it with hot water, eg in the shower, and get it *thoroughly* soaked inside and out. Then leave it to dry somewhere like an airing cupboard for at least a week.

The reason is that drinks, especially soft ones, contain sugars which can be electrically conductive when they've dried out, so what you really don't want to do is power it up unless you're sure that's all been removed.

Just a couple of weeks ago I had to fix a guitar amp (solid state) which that happened too - the owner (or actually his brother!) spilt beer into it, and it was initially OK so they turned it off and thought they'd got away with it, but when they turned it on again the next day, smoke came out...

thomasw88

thanks guys, good advice. I do have insurance for it so might go down that route first of all.  only thing is the claims dept. is not open till monday.  so if I left it till it then before giving it a shower would that be likely to too late?

is it likely to have blown anything btw?  there is a rather faint burning smell coming from it.

PolarityMan

If you wash it then I would guess your insurance company will tell you to get tae fuck hen you phone them.

Danny1969

You need to open it up and remove all the spillage with a small brush and alcohol or similar cleaner. Even if it works now geen shit will be growing on the PCB and it will never be reliable until it's been properly cleaned. I use various cut down brushes of different stiffness and size when I do this and I generally then examine under 10 X magnification. Mixing desks boards are generally too big for ultrasonic cleaners otherwise that would have been the best bet

The burning smell ? I don't know if you desk it analog o digital or whever it uses a linear or SM power supply. Don't continue to use it until it's been properly cleaned is my advice 

thomasw88

PolarityMan said:

If you wash it then I would guess your insurance company will tell you to get tae fuck hen you phone them.

yes that was my thought. if there wasn't a burning smell I'd probably give it a bash as I do like it, and its been flawless up till now. 

think I'll go through the insurance route.

Danny1969

Yeah insurance. The new entry level A &H Q rack iPad mixer is out now and due to hit the shops at around £800

http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/qu-sb/

equalsql

thomasw88 said:

PolarityMan said:

If you wash it then I would guess your insurance company will tell you to get tae fuck hen you phone them.

yes that was my thought. if there wasn't a burning smell I'd probably give it a bash as I do like it, and its been flawless up till now. 

think I'll go through the insurance route.

ICMS's advice is spot on..  I've done the exact thing a couple of times with transistors amps and they have come back up  fine. I did use distilled water though, just to make sure there was no calcium carbonate in the water.

ICBM

equalsql said:

I did use distilled water though, just to make sure there was no calcium carbonate in the water.

Ah. I live in Scotland so that's not an issue .

To be accurate Danny's advice is the correct approach, but stripping down and cleaning a modern mixing desk can be a *lot* of work and if you're paying someone to do it, could quickly become uneconomical even for a fairly good desk.

Even with the amp I did, there was nearly a couple of hours to thoroughly dismantle and clean it before I risked putting new transistors in it. Slightly worse than usual because it was a digital modeller with multiple boards, and I wan't certain how far the beer had got.