RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

I recently had to open mine up and clean out all the crud stuck to the fan. It kept giving me an error message about the fan when I tried to turn it on, and then it would shut off! So thats when I had to open it up and clean it, and luckily it works again! Feels good to fix stuff, even though all I had to do was clean it.

You'd be surprised how much dust and crud can hurt performance. Not only does it affect the fans output, It creates a thermal blanket over the components. The more the temperature increases the more the performance decreases which is just like anything else really. The most important part to keep clean is the processors fan/heatsink combo. The reason being is that some motherboards automatically throttle the CPU's performance in relation to heat in order prevent it from burning out.

The best way in my opinion to clean out the inside of a computer is with an air compressor. Its not recommended to use a lot of air pressure. Just enough to get the job done is sufficient. Do not spin the fans with the compressed air as you run the risk of prematurely wearing the fans bushing/bearing, and more importantly run the risk of breaking a blade off. You have to remember that as a fan spins it's blades fluctuate. When you shoot them with a stream of compressed air not only do they fluctuate, they now have the added stress of whatever PSI of air thats being shot at them. So make sure to hold them with something like your finger if the computers not that bad inside. If the computers really dusty and you have to spray at a distance, then use a piece of tape or something across the fan to hold the blades or even gently wedge a piece of foam between them and the fans case.

The next best method is a vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment. You have to be careful with this method as to not suck up any small components like jumper switches for example or knock into anything too hard. Its also a good idea to turn the suction setting down to something like half way if your vacuum has that feature. You can't get into the many smaller areas but at least you can get the big stuff off which is the most important.

The last method I'd use is one of those cans of compressed air. They're expensive and they don't last or work very well for this application. The problem is as you're continually using it to blow out the inside of your computer, the can gets colder and colder which makes it uncomfortable to hold and then before long it starts to spray water which obviously is the last thing you want all over delicate electronics.

Took a pic of the built rig and just realized I don't have any editing software installed yet to shrink to size for posting here. This case has 4 different dust filters, one for every intake, held to the case magnetically. Plus, there's sound deadening material (squishy foam) on all the panels. Drive mounts, fan mounts are all rubber isolated. Its very quiet. Pics up soon.

Phin wrote:Heh first this site makes me want to get my RC10 out of the attic now it's making me want to go find my TRS-80.

What's Old is New....Commodore 64 style

That is awesome! I have been looking for a Commodore for awhile. I repair vintage video game consoles, and wanted one of them to run my small business on. I think people would get a kick out of me handing them a repair form, or receipt printed on a dot matrix printer. I may have to save up for one of them!