Sticky plastic

[Koshdukai]

Good news for Minibrute owners. I finally replaced my sticky side panels for nice wooden panels.
A company called ‘2 many synths’ makes them.

http://2manysynths.nl/

They are very carefully made and look beautiful.

oh cool, thanks! Nice tip there

[MaHe]

My Minibrute have the same sticky side panels and a little sticky knobs. The wooden side panels from the nethlerlands sellers are quite nice, but 99 Euro is too expensive for me - I just bought the whole Minibrute for a 130 bucks (nice deal  )

I found this webpage - check it out: https://hackabrute.yusynth.net/MINIBRUTE/cheeks_en.html

[geronimo]

I am also inspired by this link _




And a desktop version .

[locosynth]

The rubber/vinyl can be removed easily with isopropyl alcohol and and a magic eraser (melamine sponge) and a cloth. This leaves the end plates looking like the MicroBrute which is just hard plastic and it looks fine. Pour 75%-95% isopropyl alcohol on the magic eraser and scrub. The alcohol breaks down the rubber. Then wipe away the alcohol and rubber mess with a dry micro fiber cloth. Repeat until it’s all gone and even looking. It comes off easily.

Be aware the alcohol will turn the rubber parts sticky if they were not before, so if you start, you have to finish the job. It also works on knobs and buttons. The rubber layer is very thin. Just watch out for the small little plastic inserts on the slider caps. (The horizontal grey line)  They can fall out and you have to glue them back in if you care.

Don’t pour the alcohol on the Brute directly. Although you can use it to clean electronics it’s better to keep it controlled and neat.

Only do this if the parts are sticky. Otherwise you will make them sticky and have to do this process until completion.

As a final step, buff it with a dry microfiber cloth to make it nice and even.

This works because the alcohol breaks down the rubber and lubricates the magic eraser which acts as a fine abrasive and then the dry cloth wipes away the residue.

[Koshdukai]

The rubber/vinyl can be removed easily with isopropyl alcohol and and a magic eraser (melamine sponge) and a cloth
[...]
This works because the alcohol breaks down the rubber and lubricates the magic eraser which acts as a fine abrasive and then the dry cloth wipes away the residue.

Thank you, this is a very good tip!

I've had a similar issue with the old Propellerhead Balance audio interface which suffers from this same unfortunate issue and found accidentally just recently that this solution works and went on to remove all traces of this pestering rubber coating from it.

I have yet to do it on the MicroBrute, but I intended to try on it as well. Glad that someone else already proved that this works.

[djerzinski]

I'm surprised to see there's a thread for this issue. I have the same problem with mine, I only noticed it 18 months ago maybe and I blamed the damp weather for that. The side panel are sticky, so are the fader (I think it got better for the later after cleaning it with alcohol).

@locosynth Not sure if you're gonna read that, but what do you mean by removing the rubber part? Do you mean the whole 0.5 cm layer?

Anyway, it really sucks that this is a common aging issue...

[eelco]

It's a fairly thin layer (more like 0.1 mm) on top of the blue plastic - yesterday I took it off with 99% isopropylalcohol using cosmetic wipers (the cheap ones used for skin cleaning, normally). A lot of blue/blackish stuff came off - and the surface of the side panels is now hard. It does not take much time, but you really need to wash your hands after this. After all, it is the same stuff that is now forbidden to be put in plastic toys etc. ... not healthy.

Of course it is pretty bad that this happens after a couple of years - I noticed Arturia is now using wooden panels for newer synths and keyboards. So I think they know this is a big issue.

When it gets all sticky it is impossible to touch the synth - after cleaning at least one can, even though the surface is now dull and hard. The cleaning does not discolour the side panels.

Still have to do the knobs ...

[djerzinski]

@eelco
Nice to know, I'll see if I can find this product at the store.
I'm guessing the faders are 100% in that bad plastic material. Would it be possible to put some lacker on it or something?

[Koshdukai]

I've been using isopropyl alcohol on smaller gadgets that have this issue.
Recently I found an easier (less "messy") alternative, especially when we're able to separate the plastic parts from the rest of the unit (like we can with the MiniBrute).

Here's a video I found showing the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_EqlZRIr6g

Today I finally had to take the MiniBrute apart because I needed to fix the lower C key that had a broken stopper, so after dealing with that I also took out the side panels and tried that process and it seems to work great. Now I have the side panels drying and tomorrow I'll do some cleaning inside the unit and mount everything again

[LeeW]

HI ,
I emailed Arturia as my white Microbrute SE has the "knob rot"; they will sell me replacement knobs. For all 20 knobs it will cost me £75!! and £5 each for the pitch and mod wheels
They will be the same knobs so the issue of sticky knobs will reappear in time on the new knobs.
So not ideal.

I was wondering if the keystep37 knobs fit the micro brute as they are the fully plastic non rubberised type?
Personally I don't care what colour or shape the knobs are as long as i can replace these old ones.