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AVOID using PecPads......

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John Lehmkuhl

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I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought the Eclipse cleaning solution and they recommended Sensor Swab over Pec Pads - so I bought those instead of the Pec Pads. The Eclipse cleaning solution box actually had 12 free Pec Pads in it so I tried them first and had HORRIBLE results. Worse than when I started (this is using a cut up credit card and wrapping and taping a pad to the end of it).

Just so I don't get flamed by people that use Pec Pads : If you have done this with Pec Pads and had great sucess, good for you and keep doing what you are doing =)

To all you newer people that notice you have a dirty senso and have NEVER cleaned a sensor beforer, I suggest using the Sensor Swabs. Both products are made from the same company http://www.photosol.com and both are good. However, the Pec Pads left a lot of loose particles on my sensor that I could not remove. The Sensor Swab have a long thick plastic tube (think straw) with a special pad on the end ready to use. I cut a little off from each side so that it perfectly fixs the 10D sensor.

Further more - from the Photographic Solutions web site:

PEC*PAD is not recommended for cleaning the CCD. It is not the same material used in the Sensor Swabs. PSI does not approve or warranty the CCD or any camera part from any damage caused by using non approved products.

I've had much better results using Sensor Swabs vs Pec Pads.

-John Lehmkuhl
--
*********************************************************
Los Angeles Canon digital SLR Group -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lacdg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples
 
I noticed the same thing when I tried cleaning the CCD after the trip to the dusty place. First swab with PecPads has removed some dust specs but introduced new ones. It took 8 swabs to remove most of the specs and there are still some left...

Miro
John Lehmkuhl said:
I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I
had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first
time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought
the Eclipse cleaning solution and they recommended Sensor Swab over
Pec Pads - so I bought those instead of the Pec Pads. The Eclipse
cleaning solution box actually had 12 free Pec Pads in it so I
tried them first and had HORRIBLE results. Worse than when I
started (this is using a cut up credit card and wrapping and taping
a pad to the end of it).

Just so I don't get flamed by people that use Pec Pads : If you
have done this with Pec Pads and had great sucess, good for you and
keep doing what you are doing =)

To all you newer people that notice you have a dirty senso and have
NEVER cleaned a sensor beforer, I suggest using the Sensor Swabs.
Both products are made from the same company
http://www.photosol.com and both are good. However, the Pec Pads
left a lot of loose particles on my sensor that I could not
remove. The Sensor Swab have a long thick plastic tube (think
straw) with a special pad on the end ready to use. I cut a little
off from each side so that it perfectly fixs the 10D sensor.

Further more - from the Photographic Solutions web site:

PEC*PAD is not recommended for cleaning the CCD. It is not the same
material used in the Sensor Swabs. PSI does not approve or warranty
the CCD or any camera part from any damage caused by using non
approved products.

I've had much better results using Sensor Swabs vs Pec Pads.

-John Lehmkuhl
--
*********************************************************
Los Angeles Canon digital SLR Group -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lacdg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/marro/various_photos

 
John Lehmkuhl said:
I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I
had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first
time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought
the Eclipse cleaning solution and they recommended Sensor Swab over
Pec Pads - so I bought those instead of the Pec Pads. The Eclipse
cleaning solution box actually had 12 free Pec Pads in it so I
tried them first and had HORRIBLE results. Worse than when I
Click to expand...
I don't know if you cut the Pec Pads to a smaller size or not, But if you did that would contribute to the stuff on the sensor. The guys from Pec Pad stated in a reply in RG forum that the edges of the Pec Pads are sealed so particles won't get all over everything.

I looked at one that I used, and then cut it in half. Sure enough the cut edges had paritcles flaking off.

I use the Pec Pads and Eclipse and have had nothing but good luck.

Oh Well!
 
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have had my 10D since March and haven't done a cleaning yet. I have done some sky shots every now and then to see how dirty the sensor is and it does look dusty. I've decided to wait until I can actually notice dust in my actual shots and it becomes too cumbersome to clone them out. There has been a lot of advice floating around regarding cleaning; from q-tips to canned air. But when I do have to bite the bullet and do the cleaning, it's good to know how some people have had success.
-Harry
John Lehmkuhl said:
I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I
had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first
time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought
the Eclipse cleaning solution and they recommended Sensor Swab over
Pec Pads - so I bought those instead of the Pec Pads. The Eclipse
cleaning solution box actually had 12 free Pec Pads in it so I
tried them first and had HORRIBLE results. Worse than when I
started (this is using a cut up credit card and wrapping and taping
a pad to the end of it).

Just so I don't get flamed by people that use Pec Pads : If you
have done this with Pec Pads and had great sucess, good for you and
keep doing what you are doing =)

To all you newer people that notice you have a dirty senso and have
NEVER cleaned a sensor beforer, I suggest using the Sensor Swabs.
Both products are made from the same company
http://www.photosol.com and both are good. However, the Pec Pads
left a lot of loose particles on my sensor that I could not
remove. The Sensor Swab have a long thick plastic tube (think
straw) with a special pad on the end ready to use. I cut a little
off from each side so that it perfectly fixs the 10D sensor.

Further more - from the Photographic Solutions web site:

PEC*PAD is not recommended for cleaning the CCD. It is not the same
material used in the Sensor Swabs. PSI does not approve or warranty
the CCD or any camera part from any damage caused by using non
approved products.

I've had much better results using Sensor Swabs vs Pec Pads.

-John Lehmkuhl
--
*********************************************************
Los Angeles Canon digital SLR Group -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lacdg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples
Click to expand...
 
Hallex said:
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have had my 10D since March
Click to expand...
I posted because I was confused with all the advice I've read as well. It makes sense that if you use Pec Pads to not cut them into smaller sizes - but the sensor swabs are so much more convienent and accurate in cleaning.

Glad to help,
-John Lehmkuhl
--
*********************************************************
Los Angeles Canon digital SLR Group -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lacdg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples
 
DID you in fact cut the pads, or not.
would help me a lot in deciding which way to go

thanks

feivel
 
John and All,

Slightly OT but....

Haven't used any of rhe swabs to clean my 10D as yet - too intimidating! Only used a speckgrabber(I think that's what it's called) to gingerly remove a large speck. The rest I left to Canon service at Irvine where I was going to visit to pickup a lens anyway. Chris Canada, the very accommodating person at the front desk did the job for me in about 5 minutes. Apparently he used a very strong blast of air ACROSS the sensor to "vacuum" the dust away. It realy did an excellent job.

Marq (LACdG)
John Lehmkuhl said:
Hallex said:
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have had my 10D since March
Click to expand...
I posted because I was confused with all the advice I've read as
well. It makes sense that if you use Pec Pads to not cut them into
smaller sizes - but the sensor swabs are so much more convienent
and accurate in cleaning.

Glad to help,
-John Lehmkuhl
--
*********************************************************
Los Angeles Canon digital SLR Group -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lacdg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples
Click to expand...
--
MSChecan
 
Hi,

The owner of Photographic Solutions used to frequent these forums telling folks not to use the Pec Pads to clean sensors. I guess he got tired of arguing the point and simply stopped mentioning it.

The Pec Pad is made from a different meterial than that used on the Sensor Swabs. It likes to leave streaks and will lint all over the place if you cut it.

The Sensor Swabs are made from clean room wipe material and assembled by hand in a clean room. This ensures that no stray bits of junk wind up stuck in the material. This is why they cost so danged much.

I suppose the cost of the Swabs didn't seem so high when we were paying $25k for a DSLR and wanted to make danged sure we didn't screw the surface of the imager up. Now with DSLRs costing so little, I suppose it doesn't matter if an imager gets scratched. Just toss the whole camera aside and buy another of the cheap things.

Stan

--
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

Once you start down the DSLR path, forever will it dominate your destiny! Consume your bank account, it will! Like it did mine! :)

More info and list of gear is in my Posters' Profile.
 
Hello, all:

I spent several hours tryning to completely clean my D60 sensor with cut pecpads and spatula - before realizing that the pecpad disintigrates into dust and fibers at the edges where the cut is made. And the cleaning solution just helps push the debris around the sensor.

So... if you Do use 'em, don't cut the pecpads.

Bashan
Stan Disbrow said:
Hi,

The owner of Photographic Solutions used to frequent these forums
telling folks not to use the Pec Pads to clean sensors. I guess
he got tired of arguing the point and simply stopped mentioning it.

The Pec Pad is made from a different meterial than that used on the
Sensor Swabs. It likes to leave streaks and will lint all over the
place if you cut it.

The Sensor Swabs are made from clean room wipe material and
assembled by hand in a clean room. This ensures that no stray bits
of junk wind up stuck in the material. This is why they cost so
danged much.

I suppose the cost of the Swabs didn't seem so high when we were
paying $25k for a DSLR and wanted to make danged sure we didn't
screw the surface of the imager up. Now with DSLRs costing so
little, I suppose it doesn't matter if an imager gets scratched.
Just toss the whole camera aside and buy another of the cheap
things.

Stan

--
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

Once you start down the DSLR path, forever will it dominate your
destiny! Consume your bank account, it will! Like it did mine! :)

More info and list of gear is in my Posters' Profile.
Click to expand...
--
Brian...
 
I am also "new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera" yet when I used pec pads and eclipse it worked fantastic, removing about 95% of all visible spots (at f22) with only 2 wipes.

simple, effective, and soooo much cheaper than the absurdly overpriced sensor swabs. i used the method described on pBase (plastic bendy knife)- was nervous but the results speak for themselves:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=6039997

personally i don't believe photosol's claim that sensor swabs and pec pads are different materials. i think they are identical (well maybe 99.9% identical) and they want to protect sales of their vastly inflated "flagship" product...
John Lehmkuhl said:
I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I
had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first
time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought
SNIP
Click to expand...
--
warren prasek
web design ~ interactive media ~ photography
(specifically candids/street, event, theatre, abstract/arty)
http://www.wprasek.com/
 
The PecPads work fine as long as you don't cut them! I've cleaned my D100 sensor 5 or 6 times with the PecPads, I've not had to clean my 10D yet. Personally I think the Sensor Swabs are just Pec Pads wrapped around a stick and marked up, try taking one apart some time.

--
Equipment list in profile.
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
http://www.pbase.com/digifan
 
guess which one I went for? :-)
John Lehmkuhl said:
I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I
had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first
time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought
the Eclipse cleaning solution and they recommended Sensor Swab over
Pec Pads - so I bought those instead of the Pec Pads. The Eclipse
cleaning solution box actually had 12 free Pec Pads in it so I
tried them first and had HORRIBLE results. Worse than when I
started (this is using a cut up credit card and wrapping and taping
a pad to the end of it).

Just so I don't get flamed by people that use Pec Pads : If you
have done this with Pec Pads and had great sucess, good for you and
keep doing what you are doing =)

To all you newer people that notice you have a dirty senso and have
NEVER cleaned a sensor beforer, I suggest using the Sensor Swabs.
Both products are made from the same company
http://www.photosol.com and both are good. However, the Pec Pads
left a lot of loose particles on my sensor that I could not
remove. The Sensor Swab have a long thick plastic tube (think
straw) with a special pad on the end ready to use. I cut a little
off from each side so that it perfectly fixs the 10D sensor.

Further more - from the Photographic Solutions web site:

PEC*PAD is not recommended for cleaning the CCD. It is not the same
material used in the Sensor Swabs. PSI does not approve or warranty
the CCD or any camera part from any damage caused by using non
approved products.

I've had much better results using Sensor Swabs vs Pec Pads.

-John Lehmkuhl
--
*********************************************************
Los Angeles Canon digital SLR Group -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lacdg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Photo Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl
Lens Example Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/realkuhl/lens_examples
Click to expand...
--
-Stan
stanc.net
 
Member said:
John Lehmkuhl said:
I'm new to having to clean a sensor on a 1500.00 digital camera. I
had to clean my sensor for a gig this past weekend for the first
time since buying it in April. I went to Canoga Camera and bought
the Eclipse cleaning solution and they recommended Sensor Swab over
Pec Pads - so I bought those instead of the Pec Pads. The Eclipse
cleaning solution box actually had 12 free Pec Pads in it so I
tried them first and had HORRIBLE results. Worse than when I
started (this is using a cut up credit card and wrapping and taping
a pad to the end of it).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
IMHO , the VAST MAJORITY of D-SLR photographers are using PecPads and a home-made swab as opposed to the pre-made SensorSwabs. I would love to challenge you, or anyone else, to a swabbing comparison pitting my Spat-U-Swab II w/ PecPads versus the SensorSwab. I'd settle for watching someone use the SensorSwabs, starting with X amount of dust specks before and after. Maybe others in this thread will agree with me that they DON'T WORK! And it's not rocket science why they don't work. I want to see a sensor with about 25 to 50 dust specks and count the number of SensorSwabs used to get 100% dust-free. Seriously, I really would.
Member said:
Member said:
Just so I don't get flamed by people that use Pec Pads : If you
have done this with Pec Pads and had great sucess, good for you and
keep doing what you are doing =)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Me 2, this is not a flame or some kind of braggadocio in the least. I just want to be made a believer, that's all.
Member said:
Member said:
To all you newer people that notice you have a dirty senso and have
NEVER cleaned a sensor beforer, I suggest using the Sensor Swabs.
Both products are made from the same company
http://www.photosol.com and both are good. However, the Pec Pads
left a lot of loose particles on my sensor that I could not
remove.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Is there the remotest possibility you might have contaminated your PecPad or bungled the proper procedure? Did you thoroughly rinse the credit card of plastic particles? Did you touch the PecPad at the wiping edge? Did you have an immaculate work area free of drafts and commotion? Did you inadvertantly break the weave of the PecPad? How did you wrap the pad around the credit card?

John, I love photography and I'm sure that you do, too. This is not meant to start an argument, by any means. But when you state a very negative "opinion" of a very vital piece of D-SLR maintenance equipment, I need to point out to all Canonites that there are a TON of details that must be adhered to with methanol swabbing in order to be successful. It's not "wham, bam, thank you CMOS". PecPads w/Eclipse & swab is a very methodical approach that has been proven to work time and time again in the real-world. Again, if YOU'RE happy with the SensorSwabs, cool!

Nicholas
 
Hi,

...three years ago. I've done a lot of reasearch into the whole mess. There are a lot of posts on the subject in the archives around here.

Look closely at the Pec Pad material under at least 50x mag. You'll see that they are quite different. The material even feels different to the touch. That's a big clue, you know.

Plus, you'll see all sorts of debris stuck into the fibers of the Pec Pads that you will not see in the fibers of the Sensor Swab. Cleanroom production of both the swab material and the swab istelf is very important.

All it'll take is one microscopic piece of steel from the power shear used to slice the Pec Pads up to ruin the surface of the Lithium Niobate filter bonded to the front of that CCD to ruin it. The steel will be tool steel, and have a hardness of at least 7 on the Mohs scale, while the LiNbO3 has a hardness of 5.

But, go right ahead and be ignorant of materials, engineering and production practices. Don't pay any attention to those of us that are. It won't cost you any more than a new DSLR body - I promise. If you are lucky and get away with it, then you'll have saved a couple hundred bucks.

Every so often I get sucked into the Great Sensor Cleaning Debate. I'll try and point out good ways to perform this chore, and good materials to use.

Nobody wants to buy the proper equipment for performing the maintenance. Magnifying lights and clean-room wipes are too costly now that the cameras cost less than $2k each. It was very different when they cost $25k or even $5k each.

I do grow so tired of the Pec Pad vs. Sensor Swab, Isopropyl vs. Methanol, Pressurized gas vs. Bulb Blower, Blowing vs. Sucking, Poking and Prodding vs. Wiping, Dry vs. Wet, Static vs. Anti-Static and several other constantly repeating arguments.

Go ahead. Slice up Pec Pads. Use Isopropyl. Use CO2 cartridges, Blow withj the CO2 and Suck with a Hoover, oh, and zap the innards of the camera with a Zero-Stat vinyl LP gun. I no longer care if everyone else on the planet scratches, streaks, dusts or zaps their imagers.

With the advent of the 300D, these things are cheap enough to destroy, toss away, and replace.

Enjoy!

Stan
--
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

Once you start down the DSLR path, forever will it dominate your destiny! Consume your bank account, it will! Like it did mine! :)

More info and list of gear is in my Posters' Profile.
 
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