For potentiometers, whether rotary (pots) or linear (sliders), if they have a carbon type element I’ve always used DeoxIT F5. That’s “Faderlube”. I’m not suggesting it’s the only thing you should use or it’s the best thing, I’ve just always had good experiences with their D5 product for cleaning metal-to-metal contacts, and F5 is designed for carbon element potentiometers…it cleans and leaves a light lubricant to do…something. Anyway…if you have vindictive plastic faders you just use water, ideally distilled, and a clean microfiber cloth. The thing is, Don, to your point, you can net anything in a pot but there’s still likely to be maybe stuff in there. But not a lot. Unless the device has been really in a bad environment. I’ve had good success giving a healthy jet of F5 into the pot, exercising it, and then a rinsing jet, positioning it to dry so the element is vertical and a hole in the pot body is facing down to facilitate draining. For faders, if we’re talking about the low profile budget horizontal element ALPS faders that are installed on a lot of stuff, those tend to collect a lot of yuck and I usually end up disassembling those to spray F5, gently wipe with a soft cloth, and usually repeat that step because they are so filthy, and jet the wiper too and *gently* wipe. It’s really the only way to really clean it unless you are going to position the fader upside down so you can hose it down with spray like you’re hosing out an upturned bucket after washing the car.
