Danny Chung
From:
Hong Kong
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Posted 2 Nov 2012 8:36 am |
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Hi guys
Just wanted to share briefly my experience of changing the pot on a volume pedal for the first time ever.
I'm using a Goodrich H10K volume pedal.
The pedal started producing crackling noises so according to the Jeff Newman artitcle and other articles on this forum, it was time for the pot to be changed.
Ordered a Goodrich 500k Audio Taper High Life Replacement Pot. It arrived a few days ago from St Louis.
I didn't really go through the Newman article in detail, especially the actual changing pot bit. But he said you had to do things in a particular order and only in that order.
With that in mind, I took the base plate off. Had a good look inside and went through mentally the steps I had to perform to change the pot. Wrote down those steps. I also took copious photos to make sure I had a record of what things looked like especially the winding of the nylon string.
Looked at how the brass barrel and shaft of the pot would change in relation to pedal being pressed up and down.
Did a drawing of the string winding about the brass barrel on the shaft of the pot so I knew the exact number of windings for the nylon string.
Made sure I had the right tools, the soldering iron, the solder, the solder wick for desoldering, the allen key, the 13mm spanner and a helping hand.
Watched a few Youtube videos on how to solder correctly and desolder using a solder wick.
Dismantling was easy, the old pot was removed smoothly.
Desoldering was however the tricky bit. For some reason the solder wouldn't melt for the solder wick to absorb the solder as I was touching the iron to the wick which in turn was in contact with the solder on the joint.
I eventually applied the iron directly to the joint to melt the solder enough to loosen the wire.
After loosening all the wires, I then cleaned the wire ends with the soldering iron and the solder wick. This time the wick actually started absorbing the solder. Why it didn't happen before, I just don't know.
I then used some Blu-tac to fix the new pot in position so it wouldn't move during soldering. The helping hand was used to fix the wires in position. Then soldered the wires to the pot.
This took some time. According to the Youtube videos, you don't heat the solder directly to the joint, you heat the joint which then melts the solder to cover the joint.
Put the pot back into its position in the pedal.
Made sure the shaft of the pot was in the correct alignment when the pedal was pressed fully down. Put an elastic band around the pedal to make sure the pedal stayed in the down position.
Put brass barrel on the shaft, made sure it was in the correct position for winding the string back on.
Wound the string back on to the correct number of windings. Fixed the string in place.
Moved the pedal into the up and down position to check the string worked exactly as before.
Put the base plate back on then plugged the pedal in.
It worked perfectly first time round. No crackling. The pedal worked as it should, up-no sound, down-loud sound.
Apart from the delay in desoldering and soldering, if you can get your act together on those 2 activities, then replacing a pot on a volume pedal such as the Goodrich should take about 30 minutes at the most.
So if you're thinking about changing a pot on a volume pedal, then it is a piece of piss. As Newman said in his article, you don't need to be a rocket scientist.
No worries at all. |
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Olie Eshleman
From:
Seattle, WA
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Posted 2 Nov 2012 10:11 am
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| I had an L10k and it was scratchy, and or 'clicky' even after I replaced the pot. So I removed the circuit board and other stuff, bought a new 500k pot, put it back together. And now it works perfectly. I claim complete ignorance as to what the L10k and H10k pedals are supposed to do differently or better, because mine, which I purchased used, never worked right. FWIW I had a much easier time changing the pot/ string on a Goodrich pedal than I did on an Ernie Ball pedal, I eventually gave up on the EB after pulling out a fair pile of hair... |
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