I use spray on graphite, let it dry than wipe off the extra.
Cleaning lighting fixtures - the outsides of them as a completely new topic is a good new debate. Good for you in doing the yearly maintenance. Blowing them out is the first step.
I kind of differ from the concept of using water.
Denatured Alcohol and water are vehicles. Their main use in say paint is to move
pigment and
binder from one place to another than to evaporate. What was moved by them unless pulled from the surface to some extent by way of say a rag, than just dries back onto the surface after the
vehicle evaporates. Soap on the other
hand acts as a
release agent to remove dirt, oils and other things from the surface, dirt than binds with it so it can be removed more efficiently.
Think about when you
wash a dirty window with just water - no matter the type. Given glass as a surface is a little different than the
flat paint on a
fixture, the window is easier to clean. Still in this example of what to use, were you to use just water to clean the window, some of the dirt would come off, but most of it would just be thinned out further and smear around the surface in a less dense but more dispersed film remaining on the surface. You don’t clean your windows with just water, why would a
Leko become clean?
In citing the above “some of the dirt will be removed by the rag”, alcohol or water as long as it is clean and evaporates fast enough is fine but in my opinion only for surfaces that are not that dirty and only at most marginally need cleaning, or as a secondary cleaning after a soap is used to
release and get rid of the main part of the dirt by way of absorption of both soap and dirt into a rag or towel.
Zero or as little residue as possible from the soap would be than a factor to fight against more than what’s left of the dirt on the surface. A glass cleaner such as Windex for surfaces less than totally dirty on more normal dirt, even
pyro dust. After that or for say up to and including the extent of mud, a multi surface cleaner such as 409, if not even the commercial grade of it might be more appropriate. With that second type of soap you would want to do a follow up cleaning with the
vehicle to ensure the more concentrated soap does not leave a residue of it’s own. For the most part, Windex is sufficiently removed with a rag.
I really like aftodeciacdream’s Clorox wipes idea. Both for lenses and for
fixture surfaces. I will have to try it, though it’s not very cost effective, and they tend to dry up thus don’t have a long shelf life once the package is opened. I have no idea about any residue left on the surface thus might
denatured alcohol secondary clean the surface afterwards, but the Clorox multi-surface cleaner should do a really good job of cleaning dirty surfaces. Plus it drys very fast. Might even show some promise with baked on
stage blood.
A further factor might be on lighting or other equipment that got too near the oil based
fog machine. If not even in cleaning the
fog machine. Oil while somewhat released by the above sometimes needs a more special formulation to remove it. While peroxide is used on the Neutron Hazers for the tubes, other means are needed for oil based machines. Have probably 50 or more
Power Cat Fans from Grainger which are used to disperse the
effect both for the oil based DF-50 machines and for oil based foggers. Good fan, not very rugged in it’s plastic parts of non-oil resistant
power cord. Every time they go out on a show, what oil film can be removed is, and when in for repair, the rest is cleaned in greater detail. Oil and grease in many ways being similar, I use a commercial spray on grease remover that works really well to remove the oil other more normal surface cleaning soaps won’t. It’s still a form of soap but highly concentrated in removing oil.
Final thought is that our next shop is going to get a dish washer. This not only for lenses might be really good at cleaning other parts of the
fixture body once disassembled. But the lighting
fixture would have to really dirty.