Cleaning the EKT6000-N

Remember the trip we went down South last week? We have dismantled their Toshiba PBX and took them back to our office for storage. And the system is quite dirty as well so I had to get my tech to clean them up (no extra cost to the customer) . But it was hard for me as I needed to disapppoint them even with the cleaning lady and other staff helping out. Because cleaning a Toshiba is not as easy as just polishing and removing all the sticker marks.

I have to open up the handset, take out the electronics and show them how to clean it properly. And because its a white phone, its very easy for dirt to show up. At least now, the customer's branch, even though they know they're getting a "recycled" phone (their term, ok?), at least they know they will be using clean phones and not actual "recycled" dirty phones.

This is the Toshiba EKT6000-N Electronics keyphone. Its about
more than 12 years already. These are the only "white" phones
brought into Malaysia and they're quite tough. If you look at the
top picture, you could almost believe that Toshiba was the first
to offer interchangeable covers for phones before Nokia. Ha ha ha

You can see that the phone is quite old and have never been
serviced. The top picture shows all the dusts accumulated
and also signs of roach infestation. But its not all that bad
because there are no ammonia smell and roach eggs which
means that the phone is still alright. The bottom picture shows
early electronics at work and how the cradle hook switch looked
like compared to a simple switch nowadays. In today's Toshiba
phones, they have been replaced with optical sensors as this is
more reliable since mechanical switche

Although Toshiba phones do not need much servicing, but
once you hear the cracking/vibrating speaker noises, you
know you have to open them up. This is because of the grill
design. It is very common for staplers to fall into the grills
and then pulled into the powerful speaker magnets. Not
only that, you have other debris as well. So, once you
clean them up, the sound comes out wonderfully

But the worst is always the handsets. Malaysia is a
humid country and hence, almost everyone's hands
have sweat on them. Not to forget, even your ears
too. So you can imagine the amount of dried up
sweat and grime accumulated throughtout the
12 years. The top picture shows the grime from
hands while the bottom shows the dirt/spit from the
mouth and each hole must he individually cleaned.
Someone was talking dirty. Ha ha ha ha