Dust

[Chris Brown]

I have my Yamaha M-2 in a position where it has good ventilation on 5/6 sides and there is fairly good air circulation via my desk fan as well. I like this configuration as the unit puts out a fair amount of heat especially when driving a 4 ohm load.

But while this seems to keep the unit cool enough, it seems to be taking its toll in terms of dust. The unit is absolutely immaculate having spent most of the 90's in a closed cabinet. I don’t want the dust to begin to change that.

I work on computers and I’m accustomed to dusting them out on a fairly regular basis but then again I really don’t have to worry about those parts lasting very long. By the time the parts in the computers are a few years old they are obsolete and need to be replaced anyway. It would seem to me that it would be more effective to simply not get the dust in there in the first place, but how can I do that and not compromise the cooling at the same time? Would it be enough to just cover the unit while it’s not in use, like an old car?

How have you all managed your dust issues over the years to keep your units in pristine shape?

[BrassTeacher]

Just pop them open from time to time, and use the same canned air you would use on a computer.

A lot of the things I have to work on develop issues simply because dust and dirt have been allowed to build up. We were actually discussing this very thing at the shop the other day, and I mentioned that sometime we need to have some kind of "demo session" for people, where I take a nice, clean magnet, and drag it over some window dust to show people just how much iron is in normal dust.