dirty panels

[pidigi]

Hi all!

Happy 2012!!!!!

During Christmas holidays I was cleaning my system, and this includes of course my Monoliths.
Here you can see the result, just passing my hand on the stator:

I don't use front covers.
The panels are 4 years old.
I don't smoke.
I live in a quite smog free area.
Is this normal?
By the way, my feeling is that they have lost some efficiency...

Sigh....

Ciao

Paolo

 

[TrumpetDoug]

When you say "passing my hand on the stator" you don't mean the miliar film itself do you? You mean the metal housing panel itself I would guess.

Doug - out

 

[pidigi]

right Doug, just on the external part of the metallic stator. This seems really strange to me, if the dust is the metalization of the mylar then the life of the panels is going to be very short... but I don't have any other clue!

Ciao

Paolo

 

[TomDac]

how often do you vacuum your panels?

 

[pidigi]

not very often, say once every two months

 

[timm]

Couple notes. Are they in a basement? Dust can fall from floor above. Do u have a fireplace? what type of heat do u have in the house. Those monoliths are acting as big electrostatic star magnets I would think. Hardwood or carpet. How much stay do you pull from there?

 

[pidigi]

Are they in a basement? Dust can fall from floor above.

No, they are placed in the living room

Do u have a fireplace?

No

what type of heat do u have in the house.

radiators, on the opposite side of the room

Hardwood or carpet.

tiled floor with a carpet

How much stay do you pull from there?

quite a bit

Those monoliths are acting as big electrostatic star magnets I would think.

I was scared that the panels are loosing the mylar conductive coating, this would be very bad. On the other side, if the dust that I see on the stator will attach also on the mylar, well, this is not a good thing too....

Should I be worried? How can I (should I try to) avoid this?

Thanks,

Paolo

 

[jmschnur]

Vacuum panels frequently. Perhaps use an anti static cloth to wipe them .

 

[timm]

Meant to say how much DUST do you pull from your carpets and floors. This auto correct on my phone is killing me. Just trying to figure if this 'dirt' is coming from your environment. Although w radiators and tile it wouldn't seem so. But i have never heard of anyone on this forum talk of the speakers making their own dirt from degradation. so I would still guess it is something from the room.

 

[amey01]

As others have said - this is definitely not normal. Especially if you vacuum them regularly (which, at every two months - you do).

Have you ever noticed this substance when you vacuum them, before?

Since the panel attracts dust and contaminants, this must be coming from somewhere. You have listed many things which it could be (but it is not) - but you need to keep thinking. Something is depositing this on your panels.

The other thing it could be is from the paint/insulator itself. It is certainly the right colour. You may have speakers from a bad batch. I have never heard of this issue before, so I think it is unlikely. But do try to have a close up look at the paint on the stator and see if it is disintegrating. You don't live near anything corrosive, do you?

 

[dmusoke]

My Spires are 5 months old and after reading the above posts checked their Stators for dust. I'm amazed that they were super clean while the AV equipment nearby, albeit much older, had dusty covers. (I should confess here that i find cleaning my place is a chore in my 1-bedroom apartment so i avoid it unless the parents come over, which is once a year ). I used white tissue paper and they were not stained at all, which pleased me quite a bit. I guess i'm still lucky?

 

[robertawillisjr]

My original post was lost yesterday. That substance looks like furniture polish. I would say that a shower is called for. Look in the tweaks section for instructions. An interim step (which Jim Powers said could be effective) is to get a few micro fiber cloths, lightly dampen one and use it to clean the stator and finally be sure to dry thoroughly. I would also wait a day and dry again before playing.

 

[Domchuck]

In connection to this thread, may I ask something:

The vacuuming of the Stators is, for me as a newbie in the Logan world, quite an unusual process compared to the dust removal on other traditional speakers, even though I found many threads briefly describing it. A detailed tutorial with preferably some video (!!) would be so good to read somewhere in this forum, but I was not able to find it. Can you help me (and I'm sure many others) to find it, if there is one here or somewhere else? Thanks

PS: I've seen the Shower Sticky, but nothing on vacuuming

 

[|Tch0rT|]

There really isn't much to the vacuuming. Unplug the power supply for the ML ESL for 24 hours or unplug the power supply and put on music until the panel stops producing sound (this method is controversial on this site but I see no problem with it personally, liken it to using a test light to drain the power out of a capacitor). Take the vacuum hose to the stator and cover the entire surface area front and back. There's quite a bit of suction, much more than I figured there would be the first time I did it. That's pretty much it. Mine are probably due for a session.

 

[Domchuck]

Indeed it seems simple, I'm however feeling strange while vacuuming my Logans. I use a clean brush tool at the end of the hose, I was wondering if the thinner plastic suction tool would be better, if I push the brush towards the panel too much or not enough, if approx. 50 sec of vacuuming per side is good enough, that kind of things I just love my ESL's, want to take care of them

 

[pidigi]

Meant to say how much DUST do you pull from your carpets and floors. This auto correct on my phone is killing me. Just trying to figure if this 'dirt' is coming from your environment. Although w radiators and tile it wouldn't seem so.

well, I think that the dust collected from the carpet and floor is "normal"..

But i have never heard of anyone on this forum talk of the speakers making their own dirt from degradation. so I would still guess it is something from the room.

The strange thing to me is that this "dirt" is not the normal dust I collect from the floor or the rest of the furniture: it's a kind of black dust...

 

[pidigi]

As others have said - this is definitely not normal. Especially if you vacuum them regularly (which, at every two months - you do).

Have you ever noticed this substance when you vacuum them, before?

actually I used to listen to my DIY esl speakers before the Monoliths. They were built using a graphite coating on the mylar and this coating was not absolutely stable: on the crt of my tv I always found a similar "dust"...

Since the panel attracts dust and contaminants, this must be coming from somewhere. You have listed many things which it could be (but it is not) - but you need to keep thinking. Something is depositing this on your panels.

The other thing it could be is from the paint/insulator itself. It is certainly the right colour. You may have speakers from a bad batch. I have never heard of this issue before, so I think it is unlikely. But do try to have a close up look at the paint on the stator and see if it is disintegrating. You don't live near anything corrosive, do you?

I live near the sea, but I'm sure this is not enough to cause this corrosion, is it?
I had a look to the stators, I don't see anything strange....

 

[pidigi]

That substance looks like furniture polish.

i don't use furniture polish. But...
I have made new side cherry trims few years ago, they are coated with a normal wood wax.

I would say that a shower is called for. Look in the tweaks section for instructions.

I know that the shower trick works, but I feel it like being a "last chance", if everyting else fails...

An interim step (which Jim Powers said could be effective) is to get a few micro fiber cloths, lightly dampen one and use it to clean the stator and finally be sure to dry thoroughly. I would also wait a day and dry again before playing.

Yes, I like this, much more than showering

 

[Victor]

Hi Pidigi,

Did you ever solve this problem or identify the cause?
The material you are seeing could be soot? Do you have any chimneys or gas central heating?
If you do have gas central heating has anyone serviced it recently? (As this sometimes disturbs the soot on the heat exchanger or inside your gas fire - resulting in a nasty black layer on everything in the room.)
Kind regards.....

One way to check is to run a white tissue across your coffee table to see if it suffers similarly.

 

[projectormovielover]

Never saw this thread before and I am shocked at it lol. It has to be carbon thats over your hand