Mike,



Cleaning contacts is a good thing to do, but using any type of sandpaper
is probably not the way to go. It would be similar to trying to clean
bugs off the leading edge of your wing with a course file.. It can be
done successfully but you may get unintended consequences.



Electronic contacts usually have a few microns of gold, etc. deposited
or plated on them. It is quite easy to knock off a significant amount
of that layer of good stuff with sandpaper, even very fine grit. So use
of electronic contact cleaning solvents is the best way. Alternately,
use a pencil eraser. It has a very small amount of abrasive that can
clean the contacts nicely without doing too much damage to the contacts.




Of course, any sort of mechanical cleaning requires contacts that can be
reached by the abrasive and many of the connectors have male and female
counterparts that are inside protective housings that would preclude
mechanical cleaning. And if you can possibly get the abrasive into one
portion, the other side is left untouched. Chemical cleaning is
probably best overall.



My $0.02.



Larry

"01" Zero One





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