Had a flash sync issue on a Nikon FE for months, turns out I was cleaning the contacts wrong

Honestly, I was using contact cleaner on a rag and rubbing the hot shoe contacts till they looked shiny. Took a guy at a camera swap in Portland telling me that was wearing off the gold plating and causing intermittent sync. Now I just use a dry microfiber and barely touch them. Has anyone else been doing basic maintenance totally backwards without knowing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

gavinp441mo ago

Always thought you had to scrub those things clean until they looked like a mirror. My dad taught me to use rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip and go to town on the hot shoe. After I wrecked the sync on my F2 I figured out the same thing you did. That gold plating is PAPER thin and once it wears off you get nothing but problems. Now I just blow the dust off with canned air and only touch the contacts if I see actual crud on them. Even then its a gentle wipe with a dry cloth. Feels wrong but it works WAY better.

andrew8541mo ago

Is it really that delicate though? I've cleaned contacts on plenty of old gear with isopropyl and a q-tip and never had an issue. Sounds more like a bad batch of plating on that particular camera.