dearmond 1000 volume pot has dead spot ....

[TheGuitarFairy]

hi friends,

volume pot (mini 1 meg jobbie) on my 1000 rhythm chief has developed this thing whereby it works when fully on but soon after you decrease volume it immediately shuts off. very frustrating ... I've douched it w/ contact cleaner btw.

i have a note out to an ebayer who sells a lot of dearmond stuff re- a replacement as they have a particular stem that accommodates cool dearmond knob.

if i can't find exact replacement what about opening potentiometer up? any other suggestions?

thank. you.
mike

[Dave H]

if i can't find exact replacement what about opening potentiometer up? any other suggestions?

If you can get a pair of long nosed pliers in there try crimping the cw terminal onto the track. It may have come loose.

[TheGuitarFairy]

i opened pot up ... my eyes suck but even w/ glasses/magnifying glass i can't see whats amiss.
at the point in wiper's travel where sound vanishes, i don't see anything out of ordinary.

[Mark Hammer]

https://www.amazon.com/Stabilant-5ml.../dp/B001E50GQS

This stuff is little short of miraculous. It's one shortcoming is that, since it never dries, you can't build up layers. The implication is that worn resistive strips in pots can only be restored up to a point, and if they are worn beyond that, this stuff won't help much if at all. But within certain limits, it is amazing.

[Jazz P Bass]

i opened pot up ... my eyes suck but even w/ glasses/magnifying glass i can't see whats amiss.
at the point in wiper's travel where sound vanishes, i don't see anything out of ordinary.

Hook up an ohm meter to any outside leg & the middle leg (the wiper).

Then carefully rotate the control to see where it's failing.
Then look for dirt, a crack or maybe one of the contacts is bent.
If the surface is worn, sometimes you can get away with bending the contacts over onto fresh resistive surface.

Two things have to be correct inside of a potentiometer.

The whisker contacts have to pickup the resistance.

There is also a middle ring that transmits the info to the wiper.

[David King]

An automatic centerpunch is a good tool to tighten up pot rivets (and to stake flatwork eyelets). You could start with a can of Caig's Deoxit 5%.
https://www.amazon.com/General-Tools.../dp/B00004T7RJ
https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-D5S-6-De...dp/B00006LVEU/

[TheGuitarFairy]

hey, thank you fellas'

i'm pretty sure the replacement pots that archtop.com sells have the same outer diameter of original pot's shaft but a standard, larger shaft for knob.
they're pricey but this is plan a) to get guitar gig worthy (it'll have two different knobs, unfortunately).

meanwhile i'll take a closer look at original pot after holidays ...

i did try to disassemble the <entire> pot the other night. on the threaded part of shaft theres a nut that's tightened to i-dont-know-what-to-call-it wafer w/ rivots/ what tabs bend over ... anyway, i tried loosening that but eventually whole threaded shaft started rotating w/ it.

happy holidays all,
mike

[David King]

Mike, I'm sure a replacement knob can be fabricated if you're interested. It should also be possible to turn down the replacement pot's shaft to match the old pot.

[J M Fahey]

standard, larger shaft for knob

What does "larger" exactly mean?
Thicker or longer? Not the same.
If longer, it can be sawed off and filed smooth; if thicker, which is weird, it can be (carefully) turned down as David suggests.

As a side note, IŽd rather replace the pot instead of trying to patch it .... even if successful it would be unreliable.

"Pricey" ? ... as in $30 pricey instead of $1 for a regular pot?

From one point of view, "3000 % overpriced" ; from another perspective: (cheap) "lunch money"