Electronic Lubricant Trick For difficult To Reach Potentiometers. See Warning In Info Section.

In this video I talk about a solution to getting your electronic cleaner/lube sprays inside potentiometers when they don't have access ports, of if they are to deeply buried to justify the time it takes to make the repair. After I made this video, one of my viewers suggested my approach does more harm than good, because I'm washing out the lubricant out of the shaft, and forcing it into the potentiometer, so I think his warning is worthy of consideration. I've also been informed that some cleaners can damage potentiometers.. Here is a link to a guy who studied this topic, and suggests using Deoxit D5 on potentiometers is a safe choice. • Does Caig DeOxit D5 ha...
For safety reasons I generally prefer a straight electronic lubricant on variable resistors such as volume controls, and cleaner plus lubricants on metal contacts.

[@gordslater]

This is gonna sound a bit wierd, but a 2 second squirt of freezer spray on a metal shaft (only the shaft, not the housing) before you lube them this way makes the shaft shrink just a fraction and it gets through the gap faster. You can also try a hot iron on the outer caseor the threaded section of a metal pot, which expands it and does much the same thing. We lube mechanical shafts that way, though it doesn't work with thicker liquids, only thin ones so it's OK with cleaner/lubes. If you use a hot iron make sure it doesn't overheat - most lubes are very flammable

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I've done this with a torch when trying to remove a frozen bolt, but I never realized the gap difference from a cold shaft could help. Thanks for the tip.

[@jasonledyard404]

good idea

[@TampaTec]

Nice info bro 👍

[@Duracellmumus]

If anybody want permanent solution they need to: disassemble the pot-s/slide swicses, clean it perfectly, compress the cooper riverts, check the springines, then aply a perfectly minimal amaunt graphite grease far away the contacts. And check for the resistance linearity with shaft position and contact resistance BEFORE, get it assembled and put back the original position. Is there an deoxit called magic stuf, what can conduct and get continius contact with old swich, and connectors. But it not an solution, because the switch or connector is stay weared off, and had high contact resistance when gets loaded. If u stll want to spray something inside thinking abaut these: Get the old grease and carbon wear out. After, have to degrease, but it have to not slove the carbon and plastic parts. Have to apply and pump in something for shaft, to get some (fluid) mechanical resistance, but not so mutch. I have lots off problem with new! encoders or pots, because it gets filled with grease at the shaft, and with time and rotate and heat it goes down to the contacts and feel as a BAD one. By 2 months after replace! So if the shaft has a great amaunt of mechanical resistance i find practical to open the NEW one, and leave the 1/10th of grease at the shaft. And it works by years.

[@Axldeziak]

Try cutting the needle off the end of a small syringe. (look close and you can see where the needle starts.) Use it to draw up a small amount of lubricant. Place a short piece of surgical or thin wall gas tubing over the end of the syringe. Thread the other end onto the pot. Use it to slowly inject the cleaner/lube into the pot. If it leaks use a small bandclamp or fuel line clip on the pot and needle. If either the syringe or pot shaft are smaller than the tubing use heatshrink to fill the gap. It's fussy, and messy, but it will work when all else (short of a complete disassembly) fails.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I had not thought of using a syringe. Thank you for your excellent idea.

[@SoirNoirKat]

@@GrantsPassTVRepair I know with printer repair (when trying to flush ink out of print heads etc. ... I watch a lot of DIY repair videos) it is commonplace to use an eye dropper with ~1" of aquarium tubing attached to the end of it. If you get the right eyedropper+tubing it fits together quite well. Perhaps useful for your repairs as well?

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

@@SoirNoirKat Sounds like it might work as well. Thanks for the tip.

[@goodun2974]

One of the old electronics companies that specialized in tools and gadgets for TV and radio repair (Pomona, or GC perhaps?) used to make a sort of small hydraulic pump device, like a cross between a syringe and a miniature bicycle pump, that could be filled with electronic cleaner and screwed onto the threaded shaft of a potentiometer, And pushing the knob the way you would operate a syringe what would push the cleaner into the potential hammered. We used to have one at work somewhere although I haven't seen it or use it in years. Most of the stuff we work on (audio repair shop) has metric threads on the controls and pots, and this device only had an American SAE thread. The other problem I could foresee with this technique is that a lot of more modern pots from the eighties and up are lubricated with a viscous silicone that has a honeylike consistency; and in order to force control cleaner through the shaft bushing you have to get past that lubricant, by pushing it out of the way, or diluting or dissolving it, and subsequently flooding the entire pot with a mix of cleaner and lubricant that it wasn't really designed to have on the conductive elements. Not to mention that the pot will never feel the same if you flush the factory lubricant out of the shaft.

[@randyc8171]

Awesome idea. Thanks

[@GrumpyUnkMillions]

Wifey has about 50 different sized plastic straws on the shelf. I wonder if a shortened straw that fit the threads of the pot would work as well if it could be threaded onto the pot. Some of the 'cleaner/lubricants' seem to make the resistor 'sweep' get very crunchy rather than lubricating. I have used powdered graphite on some with varied success.(lock lube)

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

The starw idea sounds like it's worth a try

[@frankowalker4662]

Great tip, thank you.

[@gnawbabygnaw]

I like it! Thanks 🤙🤙

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Your welcome.

[@electronicartis]

Hello happen new year. What kind of cleaner do you recommend to help clean an preserve the carbon in amplifier volume control.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I noticed some of the spray electronic cleaners aren't flamable, and my thinking is that I'd rather use something that is such as the one I show in the video I just made. If I'm not mistaken you can see the brand and company name in this video, but if I'm wrong let me know.

[@giorgostexnikos6976]

nice.thenks

[@surrepeight]

I have a Technics receiver from the early 1980s. My problems seem to have developed with the small, rectangular button switches that control things like speaker selection, tape monitors etc. For example, the right channels on both sets of speakers will cut out, or the left on both sets at another time. These buttons are the type that are pushed in by hand both to turn on or off, but are further out when they are "off", and settle further in when they're "on". Any tips about caring for these types of switches? Thank you ahead of time.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I just clean and lube the switches through an access point if possible, and when they don't have one I might drill a small hole while being careful not to get small metal particles inside them.

[@goodun2974]

@@GrantsPassTVRepair Manyof those push button switches as described here will have a white nylon plastic body, perhaps with a seam on the top where you can squirt a little bit of thin switch cleaner and it will wick inside the switch. Use of a syringe is best, rather than just squirting from spray can. If you want to use an older style, slightly thicker or creamier switch cleaner that has some abrasive content in it, you will have to drill a small hole in the switch housing. Some switches are almost totally sealed except for a little notch in the top where the end of a little metal spring or latch can be seen poking out; you can squirt some switch cleaner into that little hole but again use as little as possible. Don't flood the switch with it because any lubrication in the mechanism will get washed out and the switch might get sticky. As for cleaning volume controls and tone controls, if the body of the pot doesn't have any openings or they're on the underside next to the circuit board and you can't get in there easily, you can sometimes drill a small hole through the circuit board from the foil side, in between the foil traces and pads where the connect to the pot, and squirt some pot cleaner through the new hole in the board into the slots on the bottom of the control where the solder terminals exit. You can start the hole and drill most of the way through the circuit board with a Dremel tool and tiny carbide bit, but I suggest that you break through to the other side of the board by hand with a tiny drill bit clamped into a handheld pin vise such as the handle of an exacto knife or similar. A 1/32nd inch drill bit is called for here, and once again you will need a syringe in order to get the cleaning solution down into the potentiometer. You will find this method to be far less messy than merely spraying a whole bunch of cleaner in the general direction of the pot you were trying to get it into. It is also helpful to turn the receiver or amp on its side, facing up like a skyscraper so that the chips will not fall into the potentiometer when you break through to the other side of the board with the drill bit. I have done this successfully many dozens of times without damaging the control and only on rare occasion have I had to drill through an actual foil in order to get the hole to come out where I want it to. It helps to drill the hole at an angle towards the front of the unit, and in a worst case scenario you can intentionally drill through, or accidentally damage a foil, and then bridge it with a piece of wire afterwards. It goes without saying that you can only do this drilling blind on a single sided board.!

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

@@goodun2974 Thanks for the tips.

[@goodun2974]

@@GrantsPassTVRepair I have been hoping to find some tips on disassembling and repairing dual (stereo) pots in old hifi audio gear. I have disassembled cleaned and repaired many single wafer mono pots, but when you have 2 pots ganged together and the entire assembly is linked by peened, mushroomed shafts, if you grind off the rear "mushroom" to disassemble the dual pots, how do you join the parts back together afterwards? I've not seen anything like that online, and unfortunately there's a lot of collectible old audio gear with pots that are unique and no longer available. An extreme example: I worked on a Yamaha CR-840 recently with a bass control that was intermittently dropping signal in the "flat" 12 o'clock position, and defied efforts to get a suitable cleaner into it (the slots had tape around them), and I had to pull the pot off the board in order to clean it. From looking at the schematic and measuring the resistance elements of the pot after getting it clean enough to function properly (requiring an obsolete, vintage control cleaner that we can't get any more, and our last can is nearly empty), apparently the control has internal shorting switches that jumper around the resistance elements when set to "flat", turning the resistance elements into straight-line pass-throughs.

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

@@goodun2974 Sorry but I have a hard time following all of that.

[@ijontichy6070]

In this way, you will remove the slowing down lubricant and force dirt from the axis into the interior of potentiometer. I do not recomended it! vy 73 ! Matt

[@killmore75]

integrated amp sucks : (

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

Some of them can sure be a headache trying to take apart.

[@micosmiljanic4418]

I would not give you my audio stuff to "repair'...super amateurish and wrong way of the pot cleaning. The way you spray from the top of the faceplate will wash out the shaft lubricant and lodge it right into the pot itself. Let alone using this sledge-hammer type of spray not made for the purpose. Taking off faceplate takes 15-20min, and gives you the right access to 99% of pots...

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I understand your point. If your faceplate only takes 15 to 20 minutes to remove, I would not suggest this approach. Some pots are sealed, so unless you drill a hole in the side of the pot, or use the method I demonstrate, you will not be able to access the inside of the pot. I should mentioned the down side in this video. Since you mentioned the spray I used not being for this purpose, I would appreciate any alternative suggestions. I seem to remember someone saying some solvents were hard on the older pots.

[@tarun1982]

There is this WD-40 contact cleaner. How good is that?

[@GrantsPassTVRepair]

I didn't know that WD-40 produced a contact cleaner, but I've avoided using standard WD-40 due to it's corrosive agents. Even though the title of this video mentions the words "cleaner", Most of the time I just use and electronic lubricant, rather than a cleaner, as I've been warned that some cleaners may be hard on the potentiometers, and the electronic lubricants seem to eliminate the static noise.

[@Duracellmumus]

The oil film is insulator, and it design to penetrate between the metal contacts. When it tuching with sn-pb it become mostly unsolderable. Endless sucks will start with that small mistake!!!