Pots..

[Off-Beat]

I have been searching online for the last few hours for a few pots that I need.. One is the drive pot from a line 6 valve head. And another from a powered monitor that has 6 pins? I've never seen a 6 pin pot before, is it stereo maybe? I'm having a hard time finding either... Not asking for anyone to go looking for me but just wondering where you get your parts from mostly? Ideally anywhere that will ship to the UK.

[tedmich]

A six pin pot is typically a two section pot, that is two voltage dividers actuated by a single knob, or a dual/stereo pot.
they often look like this

and each group of 3 pins corresponds to the typical pot

there are even dual pots with their 6 pins in a single line etc etc. there are MANY types of pots and commercial units are often custom made and as a result can be difficult to source except from the gears Mfg.

I buy most of my new pots from Mouser, and also from many many online surplus dealers because I am cheap.

[Off-Beat]

If u can get them cheap why not! I can find plenty of pots but not the kind I need

[tedmich]

Many Mfg. will sell you exact replacement parts if you ask them, I have had good luck buying directly from Peavey, QSC and TEAC/Tascam, maybe you can find the companies online.

[Off-Beat]

Some of them are a nightmare to get hold of, esp behringer

[Leo_Gnardo]

Not asking for anyone to go looking for me but just wondering where you get your parts from mostly? Ideally anywhere that will ship to the UK.

Farnell/Element14 and Mouser have a deep catalog & Europe warehouses. In many cases I've been able to find parts that will substitute for originals but no guarantee you'll find one to fit your prize.

[Enzo]

Almost all OEM pots are custom made, but they are made with features from a standard catalog, so if you describe the parts, and even include a photo, it helps. The pot is pc mounted? Is it round or square? is it 16mm, 24mm, 12mm? Flatted D shaft? Split shaft? Solid shaft with set scrw knob? 10k 100k 250k? etc etc etc.

[Off-Beat]

I need to have a look at the line 6 again, the pot for the monitor I have is this one RCF A22K Volume Pot bit expensive I thought

[km6xz]

That A22k dual pot is pretty common and should be lower cost. I found a linear taper version in my limited stock that I bought for $0.25 from a local industrial surplus outfit....$25 for 100 of various values.

Pots are the bane of a shop. They are damaged easily and every model, even with the same brand seems to order new styles for every product. The designers apparently don't review what they already buy by the thousands to make inventory simpler. They dig out the short form catalog and spec their own pot to be made to order. There are dozens of shafts styles, lengths, spline, collar, diameter of collar, shaft and body, many pin layouts and spacing, pin vs lug, tapers. All doing essentially the exact thing but no one checked to see what they already buy in quantity. The maker of the pots has all those optional parts in stock and when a large order comes in, they assemble the pots with the elements picked by the buyer. You will notice the factory part number(not the short one for the equipment maker, the long one for the pot maker) are very long. The characters and numbers are a code that describes the pot's part that were assembled to make it. If you knew that part number, that is enough for the maker to assemble identical pots for you.....if you buy 1,000 or more.

In my old shop as warranty station for 54 brands doing high volume, we used dozens of pots every day so had to have a large stop to hope to have the right one. We have over 5,000 separate part numbers of pots in stock in our parts department yet still often had to order one that was an oddball. There is no way to get ahead of the pot availability problem. The same with knobs.

[Off-Beat]

That seems to be the only one I can find, il have to bite the bullet.

[MarkusBass]

The pot is very common and it's hard to believe that you cannot find it in UK. In Poland I can see it in almost every shop.
For example, here: Potencjometry - Potencjometr 2x22k/B (A20B) logarytmiczny - (this is 1 Pound),
or here: Potencjometr Obr. 20Kx2 A20K log. - J.M. Elektronika Sklep (this is 0,4 Pound).

Check your local stores. Have you checked ebay.co.uk?

Mark

[J M Fahey]

Just as a reference, I checked Farnell.

They run out of dual/stereo 22/25k log/audio pots, but have a lot of 10k and 47/50k which in most cases can be substituted, specially if it's a plain passive volume control.
You don't *need* to , keep searching, use more search terms as I did (log/audio , 22k/25k) because computers are literal, a shop guy when you ask for audio will bring the log one if he has it so labelled, a computer will not.

Here in Argentina I would search for the exact part first, of course, but if not available or takes more than a week, I'll happily use a functionally equivalent one (either 10k or 50k) .
My customers want to plug and play, won't go with a microscope over an amp to check what I did IF it sounds good and works properly.

Well, *some* do, but that kind is always a PITA no matter what, so .......

In fact, I *do* have a bag of 100 2x47k Log ones, so guess what I would be soldering there by now

Just for reference, these are the 10k and 50k I found at Farnell, for allm of GBP 1.75 each:
Farnell element14

or:

PDB182-K425K-103A - BOURNS - ROTARY POTENTIOMETER, 10KOHM, 17MM, 20% | Farnell element14
PDB182-K430K-503A - BOURNS - ROTARY POTENTIOMETER, 50KOHM, 17MM, 20% | Farnell element14

I'm quite certain that you'll find what you need.

And search by parameters (size/resistance/etc.) , I saw the one you found is the average one, but labelled "RCF" , that alone carries a 5x to 10x price boost

EDIT: just searched using "A22k" which is literally what is printed on the pot and written on the schematic and NOW I notice is how a Musician would search for them, without using the other search terms: all that show up are "amp brand" types, found:
2 "RCF"
2 "Blackstar"
4 "Marshall"

all the same as the generic one, all expensive

of course, still found inexpensive by a Musician who is replacing them himself and saving on a service charge .

[nickb]

And ebay Range of Stereo/Dual Lin/Linear Log/Logarithmic Mixer/Volume/Tone Potentiometers | eBay

Well Done Juan BTW! I looked on Farnell and found nada!

[J M Fahey]

Thanks )

The USA members, specially if Authorized Service, will just order then original part, fine with me, or as a Plan B order generic from, say, Mouser, because it's fast and inexpensive, UK/EU ones too but in a far more limited way , all others find postage expensive and customs/paperwork unbearable, so the knee jerk reaction is to get as-close-as-possible locally.

Notice that the 3 who answered "no big deal" reside in Russia, Poland and Argentina.

I bet South Africa and ANZ members, even if former British Empire , because of distance and freight often will use local many times.

Besides, sometimes it's a forced choice, I just checked the EBay supplier you mentioned and found this sobering notice, I ticked Countries where MEF members can be found :

Postage and packaging
Item location: London, London, United Kingdom
Postage to: Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia
Excludes: South America, Singapore, Afghanistan, Russian Federation, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine, Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Quantity:
Change country:

This item doesn't post to Argentina

[oc disorder]

Speaking of pots although no 6 legged variety here , these alpha pots fit a lot of products.



Potentiometers - Main Page

An Australian site too:-

Potentiometers