corrosion

A room or whole house de-humidifier! Or a window A/C unit for you listening room. As an added advantage, you will also be much more comfortable while listening to your rig, using either solution!

1) I'd use gold plating on every connector -- replace the old if possible. 2) For some casings, you might want to try seasoning it much like one would an iron skillet. That is, rub vegetable oil into the metal and then wipe dry. You can't do this for everything -- and you would have to remove the top covers, which contain air vents, before doing them. For front fact plates, you need to remove all the knobs and be very careful to keep the oil only on the outside (place on cloth and then rub). It would be a royal pain that needs to be repeated regularly. 3) Some components have a solid copper shield on the inside (e.g., the Cal Audio CL-10) which would help keep the salt out. Shop for those kinds of component or retrofit if possible.

4)??? I wonder if WD-40 hurts components (i.e., silicon spray). Any kind of non-conducting spray that does not absorb moisture could help (so long as the moisture doesn't bead up and do more damage thereby).

Fatparrot's suggestions are probably the simplest.

If you use a spray,dont use WD40,its actually machine oil with solvent as a carrier...use Tri-flow or Bel-ray lube.Both are silicon based.Pam cooking oil is vegetable based.There are many more knowledgeable folks here than me,who hopefully will answer,good luck,Bob

ACF50 or Corrosion X used to prevent corrosion on aircraft. I saw a TV dropped into a tank of ACF50, and receiving a great picture while in the tank - does not cause any harm & does not conduct electricity. There are reports of aircraft avionics not working, regardless what avionic techs did to try to fix them, & were then dipped in ACF50, and brought back to life. ACF50 is not cheap though, last I saw, it was around $90/gallon.

Shventus, that was great info on ACF50! I have an old amp lying around, I wonder if I could get it to work if I dipped it? ;-)

thanks guys. The issue is actually with the circuit board inside so its just not cosmetic on the outside. I found some pellets which slowly evaporate and create a vapor which inhibits corrosion which I am going to try. The aircon/dehumidifer route simply is not feasible in a house which is as open as mine is (hell I don't even have windows , just screens, on two sides! Plus thats the point of living here, not to be boxed up inside a hermetically sealed environment. So far, the tube preamp is the only thing really taking a beating and that may be because it is so open to allow heat disbursement from the tubes. All else seems find so far. Perhaps the pellets will save that (it is in for repair and the manufacturer said the circuit board was looking might corroded from the salt) - still works but I'd like to keep it going for a while. I think what will happen is if and when it dies, I'll have to switch to solid state which has a more closed design by its nature. I'll let you know how these pellets work!

Cheers -

Scott

Hoffman enclosures has corrosion inhibitors. But they're used in closed boxes, so the maintenance/replacement schedule might be quite high.