What product do you use to clean lens/camera contacts?

<p>My Tamron 17-50VC has a intermittent auto focus problem on my D2x. I'd like to clean the lens and camera contacts to see if this solves my problem. What product(s) do I need and what's the procedure for cleaning?</p>

<p><em>What product(s) do I need...</em></p>

<p>Soft, lint free cloth and 99% <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopropyl_alcohol">isopropyl alcohol</a> (drugstore) or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol">methyl hydrate</a> (hardware store, in the paint aisle).</p>

<p><em>...and what's the procedure for cleaning?</em></p>

<p>Dampen cloth with alcohol, gently wipe contacts. Easy as that. :-)</p>

<p>Most people will tell you to avoid rubber erasers, especially ones with abrasives in them.<br /> Alcohols as recommended by Michael are good.<br /> Avoid any overly strong solvent and any solvent that has additives in it that will not evaporate (such as perfumes or oils). You can test if it leaves any residue by first evaporating a drop on a mirror or glass.</p>

<p>Unless you are regularly rubbing grease on the contacts you shouldn't have to do this very often. It is good, of course, to eliminate the possibility of dirty contacts before going to more costly measures.</p>

<p>Isopropyl alcohol: Mr Freeman is correct about 99%, but be mindful that the common rubbing alcohol sold everywhere is not 99% - it's more like 70% and contains a lot of water. It will leave streaks on anything you clean with it.</p>

<p>Ask the pharmacist for pharmaceutical grade isopropyl. Many of the large chains don't carry it. If you can't find it in a pharmacy, do a local search for chemical supply companies - ask for reagent grade - it's the same as pharmaceutical grade.</p>

 

<p>My guess is, the intermittent auto focus problem is unlikely caused by the camera/lens contacts as they are gold plated, and the few degrees of twist-lock will dry-wipe the contacts under friction to in effect clean the contacts every time the lens is installed/removed. </p>

<p>Check out Deoxit from Craig Labs. A small bottle is about $15 . I have used the product for many years with success to solve lens/camera contact problems. Has always worked for me.</p>

<p>This should be a link for DeoxIT: <a href="http://store.caig.com/">http://store.caig.com/</a> Think Amazon sells the product also. Guess its CAIG and not Craig.</p>

<p>Q-tips and alcohol is pretty old school. Electronic contact spray cleaners are much more effective. They can be purchased online or at electronic supply stores like Radio Shack. Avoid spraying anything but the contacts obviously. And no they don't affect the plastics used in cameras anymore that the plastics used in other electronic devices.</p>

<p>Nikon rep in Houston told me denatured alcohol. No pencil erasers. Joe Smith</p>

<p>+1 for Deoxit. I bought mine at Radio Shack.</p>

<p>Cleaning contacts? just a piece of (toilet/kitchen)paper.</p>

<p>Deoxit is excellent stuff.</p>

The metal lens mount and bayonet are the ground conductors for Nikon's AF mount. Make sure to thoroughly clean these as well. At the time of introduction the D300 had a well known problem with the lens mount and contacts, which would get develop a black carbon-like accumulation over just a couple of week's time, which increase electrical resistance. Isopropyl alcohol didn't get at the problem for me nearly as well as DeOxIt did, which really helped until Nikon finally came out with a firmware update which seemed to lower the threshhold voltage under peak demand at which the camera would lock up due to a false low battery indication. After the upgrade the camera was not nearly as prone to locking up with a minor amount of gunk on the contacts and mount. My two F5s were also sensitive to black junk forming on the mount and behaved similarly. My D200 didn't seem to have any problems in this regard. Don't know about the D2X ever having this issue, but keeping the contacts clean can't hurt (unless you go and get some solvent entrained inside your lens). Might also want to check your firmware version to see that it was the latest and greatest?