That moment I realized I'd been cleaning sensor contacts all wrong for years

I was working on a Nikon D610 that had intermittent AF issues, and I'd already cleaned the contacts with isopropyl alcohol like 3 times with no fix. A buddy of mine who used to work at a Canon repair center walked in and watched me for a minute. He told me I was using the wrong side of the q-tip and probably pushing dirt deeper into the crevices instead of lifting it out. He showed me this trick where you use a tiny bit of DeoxIT on the tip and drag it in one direction only, not back and forth. I swapped out the old lube on the lens mount too while I was at it. Fixed the camera right up after that one pass. Made me wonder how many other cameras I've just been guessing at instead of actually fixing. Any of you guys have a go-to method for cleaning those little gold pins that actually works every time?

2 comments

2 Comments

gray625d ago

Same thing happened to me but with HDMI ports on a TV, I was scrubbing them like crazy and making it worse.

ryan_ellis24d ago

You really think scrubbing harder was the problem, not the fact that you were probably using the wrong cleaner or pressing too hard? Maybe your contacts were just worn out and no amount of fancy technique was gonna save them.