[R-390] Cleaning

[Dan Merz]

Hi, if it were a 390 I'd let it warm up to 45 to 50 deg C with air movement
and I would guess the water would be gone within a few hours to 24 hours.
Direct sunlight and some  way of forcing warm air over the radio should do
it.  Turn the radio upside down if you literally filled every nook and
cranny.  You can probably safely heat it higher but not sure.   Has anyone
ever submerged a 390 radio in distilled water and plugged it in while under
water ?  Or has anyone ever turned the heater on to a typical receiver
vacuum tube under water?  Unless you really soaked the power tranformer to
the extent that water got into the windings, I'm having trouble imagining
what would give.  If you took a dry 390, put it under distilled water and
immediately turned it on, what would give.  Do ferrite cores soak up water?
Does the phenolic suck up water and weaken?  Probably to some extent but can
safely driven out by moderate temperature.  I'm not willing to try
submerging mine and powering it up unless someone is willing to pay for the
report.  And since I'm not familiar with a Siemens E311 my recommendation
about how to get rid of the water may not be worth much. I started out to be
helpful but got lost in expanding the scope of the question, forgive me.
Postscript:  what a beautiful looking radio the E311 is !! - I googled it
and found some pics.
 
Most cleaning jobs,  with the exception of cleaning moving mechanical parts
such as gears, bearing, are aimed at cosmetic beauty.  I can't recall a
radio performing any better after cleaning except for the moving mechanical
parts. So I would be judicious in how I used the liquids involved when
cleaning near the coils and transformers since you are just wanting to clean
the outside.  After all, you can use a saturated toothbrush to scrub away
areas without submerging the area with liquid  and then wash away the
residue with small streams of water rather than a garden house ala Medley.
I think the beauty of the garden hose is getting rid of all the cleaner and
steel wool (use only when absolutely necessary, I like the green scrub pads
instead) in a forceful way.  I try to wash away cleaning residue and not
immerse the radio in liquid at any time.  If liquid can make its way into
some slight opening under slight pressure,  then water vapor can likely make
its way out later when you heat the radio.  It doesn't want to be there when
there's drier air outside.   Moisture is safely driven away by warm
temperature and time.   If you can touch it with your finger,  the
temperature is ok but a little cool.  If it's a little too hot for your
finger for any length of time,  it's probably still ok for the radio and the
water will go away faster.  I seem to remember that 60  deg C was  too hot
to touch for very long. I've never bothered using distilled water, but for
some tap waters it may be a good alternative and it can't hurt.  If we all
had the Arizona sun,  life would be much simpler.    
  Dan. 

-----Original Message-----
From: r-390-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:r-390-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Paolo Mantovani
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 12:37 PM
To: r-390 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [R-390] Cleaning

Hi all,
slightly OT: I'm cleaning my Siemens E311 "the Dave Medley's way": 409,
distilled water, drying. What if the area includes coils and transformers
that cannot be removed? Water will penetrate and will not go away easily.
Does anyone have an alternative method?
Regards
Paolo
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