Cleaning Pots

pandatone · Post by **pandatone** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:36 pm

what do you guys recommend, to be used to clean pots?
i have a sansamp that is almost unusable. there are other problems i think. but i'll start there.. it's serious scratchy, to loss of signal when i twist them knobs. just some air? wd-40? super nice rubbin' alcohol?
and tech21 was all "75$" to look at.. i don't think i spent 75$ on it!

panda

earl parameter · Post by **earl parameter** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 5:05 am

if just sitting there and twisting the hell out of the pot back and forth for about 30 mins for a self cleaning doesn't do it. try something like DeoxIT Fader Lube, http://store.caig.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.293/.f but never anything like alcohol you will destroy the pot. most electronic component cleaners will also destroy it you need something with a lubricant that is safe on plastics.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 12:20 pm

unless you are dealing with a high quality pot, IMO its not worth the bother to clean them. I just replace them. I dont know if you can do that easily on the sansamp thhough, last time I opened one up they had seriously sealed the components in there.

dave

dwelle · Post by **dwelle** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 2:10 pm

and to expand/hijack the thread...

what to use to clean up the faders on my old yamaha pm-1000?

pandatone · Post by **pandatone** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 3:09 pm

yeah. the componets are seriously locked up in the sansamp. i would have to do some work to get to them. maybe i'll just get a new one. but i figured i should atleast try cleaning the pots and switches, since it makes alot of noise when i move them.. but it sounds like there might be other things wrong too.. =\

panda

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 3:23 pm

you can try to spray deoxit into the pot but if you have an open pot, its just gonna get dirty again, etc. Once pots get fucked, they kinda stay fucked in my experience. These things DO have a life to them, they eventually wear out. The big exception with cleaning is with stuff like the old allen and bradley pots that were built to a really high standard and tend to respond well to a cleaning. The pots that were used on the ADR gear, whatever they were, are just junk and Ive had to replace those in the one compex I redid, cleaning them had no effect on the noise present on the tracks. Deoxit and pro gold are a good start.

As for cleaning faders, careful with using stuff with or without lubricant in it. What are the faders in the console exactly? I have plastic conductive plastic faders in my console and just cleaned them with water and a q tip, it took a long long time, but got them totally clean, didnt add any extra lubricants at all. Sometimes if you add the wrong lubricant to a fader it can eventually gum up and actually lock up or totaly ruin the fader in the long run. All depends on what part you have though. P&G conductive plastic fader will clean up %100 with nothing but water and a Q tip and my faders were BLACK from tar and whatever else was going on in the 70's. Took a few hours (really) per fader, but they work really well now as opposed to not working at all in some cases when I got the console.

dave

slochldrnplayin · Post by **slochldrnplayin** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 8:08 pm

soundguy wrote:unless you are dealing with a high quality pot, IMO its not worth the bother to clean them. I just replace them. I dont know if you can do that easily on the sansamp thhough, last time I opened one up they had seriously sealed the components in there.

dave

I agree! If you can't "excercise the pot clean" then replace it. Cleaning solutions sometimes cause more harm than good.

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