Lost friction in potentiometer after cleaning

J

jdduffield

Active member
I’ve been cleaning scratchy potentiometers with DeoxIt D5. Sometimes it causes a loss in friction and the potentiometer becomes too easy to spin/change. I guess it loses its grease or something, or loosens the grease inside that acts as a mechanical resistance for making the knobs change more smoothly.

My question is, will that friction come back on its own in time? A month, 6 months, or a year from now, will the potentiometer feel smooth again or will it remain slippery/loose/friction-free?
 
It won't come back. Next time try to apply Deoxit only on the resistive track if you can. I even made custom, tiny nozzles from syringe needles to be able to aim more precisely. If you spray too liberally it can get inside the shaft where the grease is, and things will get loose.

Having said this, IME Deoxit is not a long term fix for pots. Once they start to get scratchy, you're only prolonging the agony by a few weeks or maybe a couple of months with Deoxit. YMMV.
 
If there's any DC across an audio pot, it will likely be scratchy even if brand new and good quality. Or, if there's no DC, you might have simply bought some crappy pots... What's the circuit?
 
JTEX said:
What's the circuit?
Click to expand...
Kliche Mini. But I can’t say for sure if these three pots were scratchy. I got a batch of pots that kept coming out that way right out of the gate so instead of reopening the new pedals I would clean all and any pots first. (Not knowing it desolves grease.) I guess I should stop doing that. I’m new to this and my thought was it is easier for me to put a squirt of DeoxIt in them than to reopen random builds that would have the scratch sound issue.
 
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Asdrael said:
For what it's worth I have been using WD40 contact cleaner and am pretty satisfied with it. No scratch but not unwanted lubrication either.
Click to expand...

This stuff is surprisingly good for the price. It's basically the same formulation as MG Chemical's Plastic Safe Flux Remover 4140A and I use it when I either need the added force of the compressed blowing (phrasing!) or more precision application.
 
The more I look at the original Klon schematic, the more it looks to me that things are likely to get scratchy when turning the gain pot. An opamp gets its DC bias through a pot's wiper. Been there and done that in one of my (completely unrelated) designs, and guess what? It was scratchy, even using one of the best pots money can buy. It's now on my "don't do this again" list.

Can somebody else with a Klon or copy confirm/infirm whether the gain pot is scratchy?



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JTEX said:
Can somebody else with a Klon or copy confirm/infirm whether the gain pot is scratchy?
Click to expand...

I don't recall any scratchiness when turning the gain pot on any of the Klon(e)s I've used... assuming we're talking audible, and not something that can only be heard with a scope or spectrum analyzer.
 
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