Cleaning sealed pots?

[blungo2]

Hi,

I have a really cool Altec pre clone that i love. Recently some of the pots have become noisy. I took it apart to spray some contact cleaner in the pots, but they're completely sealed.

Is it possible to clean sealed pots, or do i just need to replace them?


thanks!

[winky dinglehoffer]

Sometimes you can get by spraying a little contact cleaner around the base of the pot shaft and turning the pot to (hopefully) allow some of the cleaner to seep in. It's often effective, if not the ideal solution.

[blungo2]

Thanks. That's what i wound up trying. Don't know if it worked yet...

[blungo2]

It worked, thanks!

[roosteross]

Well, the advice given was well intended but it would not have worked. Believe me, it is only wishful thinking. If you think it worked you have only realized the virtue of turning the pot a few (probably many) times to relieve the scratchiness. Nothing got cleaned by any contact cleaner.

And really, I think I have seen it all when it comes to trying to clean a sealed or otherwise unavailable pot. One guy, a writer in Vintage Guitar Mag actually displayed his invention last month, a bell type tube attached to a typical tube used with contact cleaner. His plan was to encase/surround the pot shaft and squirt the contact cleaner to the entire shaft, being convinced that the cleaner liquid was traveling down the shaft and cleaning the trace of the pot. (This was on a customer's vintage ES335, BTW, and a very difficult job it is to remove those pots for cleaning.) Ha! This is ridiculas when you actually know the construction of a potentiometer. It ain't gonna happen. Ever.

But the good news is that any sealed pot can be opened. Whether PEC or Clarostat or CTS or whatever. It's an effort sometimes, true, but it's the only way you can clean it.

Interesting, too, I have seen some plastic encased rotory switches that are glued shut. Looks impossible, right? Not so. Typically, if you turn the pot you will find a small hole drilled into the side - this is your access point to the contacts. Spray here.

Excuse me for interrupting, BTW, but I wanted to see if I could stop an urban myth in it's tracks.

[Jim Williams]

Pulling off the rear cap allows access to the wiper and element. Using a q-tip and a non-residue contact cleaner you can clean off all the dust on the element.

This won't work on dual sealed pots as you won't get the inside cap off.

On plastic conductive pots like Clarostat and mod pots, I melt a small hole into the side of the case. Then you can squirt some cleaner insides. If you are careful and make the hole where the track doesn't pass, it's a good technique to save an expensive pot.

[kakumei47]

Pulling off the rear cap allows access to the wiper and element. Using a q-tip and a non-residue contact cleaner you can clean off all the dust on the element.

This won't work on dual sealed pots as you won't get the inside cap off.

On plastic conductive pots like Clarostat and mod pots, I melt a small hole into the side of the case. Then you can squirt some cleaner insides. If you are careful and make the hole where the track doesn't pass, it's a good technique to save an expensive pot.

Yeah, as Jim is mentioning often "sealed" pots and switches aren't really sealed, and you can use a little screwdriver to open them up and spray some cleaner inside. Even the really huge Schadow switches can be opened up and sprayed (just be super careful with all these that you don't lose little moving parts...spend plenty of time on the CR floor after disassembling an eq switch and watching a little piece of crucial metal fly across the floor.

My console had a lot of the pots drilled/burned for this purpose (blue pot on left below). Obviously be careful you don't do too far in if you do this. Not essential on single pots but a lifesaver sometimes on the big quad and dual pots...



I also took the back off those switches next to the blue pot. a little spray in there got rid of some really nasty scratching...