Cleaning Your Polyend ;)

Hi all…I need to clean my Polyends (stop laughing at the back!)…a Tracker and a Play…but am worried about the rubberised components like the backings and knobbies reacting to something like isopropyl. Has anyone got any recommendations or learned lessons on de-griming your machines?
Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

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I just wipe mine occasionally with a clean microfiber cloth using no liquid or anything else and its fine.

Aye, that’d be my standard…but someone somewhere has kinda spattered it with what looks like oil of some kind so I’m trying to get that off in case it affects the finish

As an ex graphic designer I used to use cigarrete lighter fluid as a cleaner for grease. Place a small amount on a clean cloth, not soaking just enough to lightly wet, then I would try and wipe a button in a corner lightly. Wait a few minutes and if all is good then proceed carefully. Do not pour lighter fluid over machine. This is just a suggestion others may find a different approach.

:slight_smile: guess what career I’m on the run from…yup, still got my tins of lighter fluid too. Thanks for the reminder!

JUST TO ROUND THIS ONE OUT IN CASE ANYONE ELSE HAS THIS QUESTION (or had to deal with a certain other well-known audio hardware manufacturers’ degrading rubber knobbies): the wonderful Polyend peeps answered my query with…

“The manufacturer says it’s safe to use isopropyl wipes, or a clean cloth with alcohol.”

Thanks everyone for your suggestions…I know it was an odd question :slight_smile:

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Do they also make digital lighter fluid? lol

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I used apple vinegar!
Works fine and is 100% ecological - no chemicals!
:smiling_face:

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I’m just gonna drop this one here:

I love Soft Cell and I love the topic haha :heart:

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I’ve been using rubbing alcohol wipes without noticing any damage. I find if I get oil stains from fingerprints and beard oil on the plastic, if I wipe it quickly with them it keeps it from staining too bad. Also works on ABS keycaps to do this.

Hi all, new PT Mini user here. It turns out old habits die hard so there’s now some finger grease smudges on the screen where I wanted to use it as a touch screen.

Does anyone know if it’s ok to use lens wipes to remove them?

A simple microfiber cloth doesn’t work, unfortunately

have been using lens wipes since i got it, have not seen any issues with it yet. so i think it should be fine. Microfiber will work, but needs some liquid courage :laughing: .

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any suggestions for cleaning the soft touch casing on the tracker mini? oily fingerprints?

for that kind of surfaces I have always used a microfibre cloth moistened with water and well wrung out

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Isopropyl is pretty much the safest to use on electrical components and plastic housing. The silicone layer on the exterior should also hold up really well to isopropyl alcohol. So I would take isopropyl at 70-90% and just wipe the exterior.

If you need to remove crud from between buttons, simply take a Qtip and cut one of the buds off one of the ends and use it as a mechanical scraper to remove any crusties. After dislodging all the boogers, grab an alcohol wipe and clean up the plastic housing.

As far as using vinegar, I would stay away from that as a cleaning agent on electronics. Vinegar tends to corrode copper and other metals like aluminum, it is perfectly safe for the plastic housing but I wouldn’t risk it. It could go around buttons and get onto the main circuit board. Whereas alcohol would just evaporate, leaving nothing behind, vinegar corrodes.

As far as lighter fluid goes, some of those can actually break down plastics and cause them to deform or change colors. The silicone layer will protect the plastic for the most part, but this is another family of chemicals I’d keep far away from your Polyend Tracker Mini.

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