Cutting out?

[Rocket]

No WD-40, no De-Oxit, no carb cleaner...

Freon PCA 113.

[mrmudcat]

You can also pull the knobs and shoot some compressed air in the crooks and crannies to clean them before adding anything:

[Rocket]

Remove all pots & bypass wiring for max... ends cleaning chore!

[jim p]

Well this whole how best to clean a pot thing has been interesting. In surfing around have found that in the antique radio, stereo and camera repair camp they would dissemble the pot gently clean with a plastic eraser then use Teflon grease on the wiper. If the wiper binds then the operation of the pot will not be smooth and may cause audible pops in the output signal. For those of you who talked about slide pots they are a little of a different case (more open greater chance of dirt, dust, Pepsi getting in) but there is slide lube made for that so lubrication would and is used on the resistive element.
On manufacture a different grease or lubricant could be used at different locations within the pot. At the control shaft, the shaft and the front face of the pot makes up a sleeve bearing so a high viscosity grease would keep this from binding and act as a seal to prevent dirt from getting into the pot. Then there is the wiper to resistive element and wiper to commutator ring from what the repair guys have done above nonconductive grease here would work well to prevent binding and with the wiper inside of this dab of grease dirt would just stick to the outer layer and not effect operation.
If in manufacture they did use grease at the shaft blasting cleaner in at the shaft is not a good idea it will move the grease into the body of the pot so working from the back of the pot would be better plus this will leave you with bare metal against bare metal.

For those of you into DeoxIT here is there answer when asked

We do repairs on radio communications and audio/video equipment. Looking for a recommended product for safely cleaning and lubricating modern carbon potentiometers. Our stash Whisk, a good but banned older spray is finally depleted.

Thank you.



Morning,
If the pots are truely carbon contacts then we would recommend the DeoxIT FaderLube. If they are/could be carbon wipers with metal contacts, then we would recomment the DeoxIT D100S-2 product.


If you do not know, I would use the FaderLube first. If that solves the issue than you are good-to-go. If their is meatl on the pot, then the FaderLube will not dissolve oxidation and your issue may still remain. Then use the DeoxIT D100S.

So what is the secret ingredient lubricant in FaderLube and is it that much different then WD 40? For all you know it could be WD 40 but who knows it is a secret.

Now the old repair guys would do a three part process (denial, acceptance, then replacement) if not disassembled then cleaning, followed by drying with hot air gun and last light lubrication.

And some of the old guys would use a light application of WD 40. And some hate it and some used another manufactures equivalent in some cases.

Bottom line do what you feel makes the most amount of sense for you
So "Be the pot" "Wax on, Wax off"