As anyone who has ever had a piece of older devices that has a potentiometer in it can attest to, these mechanical elements do requirement their routine cleaning ritual. Whether it’s volume knobs on a receiver or faders on a mixer, over time they get crackly, scratchy as well as generally imprecise because of the oxidation as well as gunk that has a tendency to gather inside them.
This is your potentiometer caked with gunk.
In this blast from the past, [Keith Murray] shows a few methods in which fader-style potentiometers can be cleaned, as well as exactly how well each cleaning technique works by testing the smoothness of the shift over time with an oscilloscope. It’s enlightening to see just exactly how terrible the performance of a grimed-up fader is, as well as exactly how bit a blast of compressed air helped. get in touch with cleaner works much better, however it’s necessary to get all of the loosened bits of gunk out of the fader regardless.
In the end, a soak in isopropyl alcohol (IPA), in addition to a full disassembly complied with by handbook cleaning were the only ones to get the fader performance back to that of a new one. utilizing get in touch with cleaner complied with by blasting the fader out with compressed air seems to be an acceptable trade-off to prevent disassembly, however.
What is your favored method to clean potentiometers to keep that vintage (audio) gear in peak condition? let us understand in the comments below.
Thanks, [Grant Freese], for the tip!