Cleaning volume knobs

[VomitHatSteve]

Hi folks. I fished out a bass I haven't played in a few years. After a few minutes of playing, it started cutting out pretty badly.

We futzed around for a bit and decided the probable culprit was dirty volume pots. So I spritzed it pretty thoroughly with some contact cleaner. That seemed to help a bit, but I'm still getting some crackling, especially when I move the knobs at all.

How do you clean these things up? Is there some way to open up the pots themselves to get at the corrosion in them? Should contact cleaner seep in well enough?

 

[joro]

Hi folks. I fished out a bass I haven't played in a few years. After a few minutes of playing, it started cutting out pretty badly.

We futzed around for a bit and decided the probable culprit was dirty volume pots. So I spritzed it pretty thoroughly with some contact cleaner. That seemed to help a bit, but I'm still getting some crackling, especially when I move the knobs at all.



How do you clean these things up? Is there some way to open up the pots themselves to get at the corrosion in them? Should contact cleaner seep in well enough?

did you actually pull the pots out so they were exposed or did you just spray around the knob?

 

[VomitHatSteve]

The latter, but I did pull off the back plate and spray the underside of them as well.

 

[joro]

The latter, but I did pull off the back plate and spray the underside of them as well.

ng man....you need to access the top of the pots with the pot piss...that means taking them off of their mounts....

 

[Telegram Sam]

I would try using DeoxIT to clean the pots,
followed up by Faderlube to lube them.

 

[muttley600]

It takes time and frequent moving of the pots to clean away any build up of corrosion. A little and often is best. If it won't go away the contacts and strips are worn and you will need to replace the posts. Not a big job.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Most pots are pretty easy to take apart and put back together, and as long as you're relatively gentle with the insides it would be pretty easy to clean the strip. While you're in there, double check all of the connections in the circuit to look for broken, loose, or otherwise questionable connections. This kind of thing can sometimes seem to be the pots, when it's really something else.

 

[ranjam]

You can trust John Carruthers to show you how.

Cleaning Your Electronics - YouTube

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Thanks folks. This bass has what appears to be an over-engineered active circuit, so I'm loathe to actually take it apart. It looks like a few more applications and getting the knob from all angles seems to have mostly taken care of it.

 

[ecc83]

Thanks folks. This bass has what appears to be an over-engineered active circuit, so I'm loathe to actually take it apart. It looks like a few more applications and getting the knob from all angles seems to have mostly taken care of it.

AhA! It is active! The electrolytic coupling caps have got leaky due to being left so long. They are now begining to reform and keeping DC off the pot track. The clean won't hurt tho'...

Dave.