Last summer I bought a Sansui G-6000 receiver off Craigslist that smelled like cigarette smoke. After a lot of research online and various tests at home, I found the easiest way to get rid of the smell was the one that simply required the most patience.
How do I remove cigarette smoke smell from receivers and electronics?
The easiest way to remove the smell of smoke from electronics is to dissemble the unit by removing the top case from the receiver and let them both sit in the sun for up to 6 hours a day for a period of 3 to 4 days, depending on the severity of the smell.
The sun will remove the smell much better than applying liquid cleaners or sprays to the unit.
The key to getting the best results is to remove the top case from the unit so the sun can penetrate inside the unit as well. You want both the inside of the unit and the top case to be exposed to the sunlight.
I found it took 3 to 4 days to full remove the smell from my unit, but it make take more time or less time sitting outside for you, depending on just how strong the smell was originally.
More about my Sansui G-6000 that smelled like smoke…
Last summer, while bored during quarantine, I took a chance and posted on Craigslist that I wanted to buy a vintage receiver and if anyone had one lying around that they did not want, to please let me know.
A couple of weeks went by and I received a text from someone who had a Sansui G-6000 receiver and was interested in selling it. The unit had belonged to her father but she wanted to sell it and “get this huge thing out of my house”.
We came to agreement on price and I met her at the local grocery store to purchase the unit. I couldn’t tell at first, probably because I was wearing a mask, but once I got the Sansui home, I noticed that familiar smell of cigarette smoke that often comes with vintage electronics.
Released in 1978, the Sansui G-6000 would’ve been available in homes where it was common to smoke indoors and around all of the electronics in the house. Of course, no one would have guessed back then the value these vintage receivers had today, so it didn’t bother them to smoke around the gear for hours on end.
I started to research online on how to best remove the smoke smell from vintage receivers and couldn’t find anything definitive that promised to the do trick. There are plenty of suggestions on using a vinegar based cleaner and other methods.
I knew that people often set items that smelled of smoke outside in the sun and it had worked well for them. I decided to try the same with this unit and after a few days of sitting in the sun, the smoke smell became very faint and was hard to smell at all.
Again, the key to making this successful is to remove the outer casing of the receiver so the sun can also reach the inside of the receiver. Keep in mind the smoke has been inside the unit just as much as it was floating around the outside so the various components inside need exposure to the sun as well.
There is always the chance your unit will need some sort of cleaner to be applied in order to help to remove very strong smells, but I found this simple trick worked great, even if it took a long time to get the best results.
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