Saturday, January 21, 2012

An idea from Og that had wider applications

A while back I'd mentioned the cruise control on my truck was acting up; Og suggested cleaning the connector and putting some dielectric grease on to keep it clean. Made a world of difference.

So, about two months ago I was having trouble with the MP3 player I'd picked up; the sound would sometimes break up if the earbud plug wasn't just right. Idea struck: cleaned the plug, wiped a thin coat of the grease on, worked it in & out a few times, then wiped the plug off; haven't had a problem since.

One more: I've got a couple of those inexpensive LED flashlights that use three AAA batteries in a cage, and every so often the damn things will start cutting out if you tilt them. Cleaning the contacts helped, but didn't last. So I opened them up, put a dab of the grease on the top & bottom contacts of the cage, and so far no more problems.

That little tube of grease is going a long ways.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think my mother has that same AAA flashlight. I pulled it apart and the contacts were just barely making contact under the best of circumstances - with rechargeables they didn't work at all. I pulled the contacts out and used a nail set to make the contact dimples more pronounced and it's been reliable ever since.

Firehand said...

I did check the springs, didn't seem to be the problem on these; could well be on others.