[sdiy] Potentiometer Heights

[Peter Grenader]

Cyn

This is a good Batz is suggesting here, but probably out of the question for
you now in that (I bet) you are at the tail endof a project rather than the
beginning and just want to faceplate mount your knobs without having them 3
inches off the surface.

I've gone through this mess you're going through.  I have a third hand/table
vise with rubber stops. Dont wedge it in there too hard or you will surely
cause damage to the wiper/coil.   I just snug the pot in there  held by the
vise at its base on one end and the tip of the shaft at the other.  You just
start slow and continue with minimal pressure on the saw -let the saw find
it's groove and it goes fairly easily.  It doesn't take that long at all.
without a vise though it could get ugly.

It bugs me that this is about the only type of pot shafts you can find in
walk-in stores.  Now, try finding 6mm ones...this gets even more
mightmare-on-elm-streetish.

hope this helps,

P

on 7/5/02 10:28 PM, Batz Goodfortune at batzman at all-electric.com wrote:

> Y-ellow Cynthia 'n' all.
> 
> At 11:33 AM 7/5/02 -0700, Cynthia Webster wrote:
>> Sounds like the title of a new soap opera
>> 
>> Stay tuned for next week's episode of
>> 
>> "Potentiometer Heights"
> 
> In which Cynthia shows her prowess as a 1337 haxor.
> 
>> Anyway, here I am with a hacksaw going-at-it with a big bag of
>> different length pot shafts and wondering if someone has a
>> suggestion for an easier way to deal with this dilemma?
> 
> Often, I have circumvented the whole problem by designing everything to
> bolt to a sub-panel. The depth of which depends on the length of the shaft.
> No cutting at all but some fabricating involved. Though the main reason for
> this isn't really the pot-shaft cutting deal. The reason is that the pot
> can then bolt to a flange behind the panel. It does not tighten on the
> panel and if you've used a heat coated paper panel, this can be important
> as the tension of doing up the nut will twist and/or rip the ply of the
> panel markings. Not very pretty.
> 
> This also allows you to use much smaller knobs. And knobs that don't have
> skirts who's only real purpose is to hide the pot-nuts. And finally, by
> using a sub panel, you can drill a tiny little hole through which the
> securing flange that some pots have can protrude. Thus locking them in
> place and preventing the pot from rotating. Even if the pot-nuts become lose.
> 
> It's not always necessary to make an aluminium sub-panel either. You could
> for example, make your PCB with holes in it for the pots to mount directly
> to. Some over-sized lands on the solder side will even allow you to
> virtually-surface mount, a standard ol' toy-shop-pot to the board. (Thankya
> Roman) So in the end you can build your entire circus on one PCB and just
> mount the PCB a "Pot-shaft's distance"tm under the main front panel.
> 
> No wiring. No cutting and the pot's right smack bang in the middle of the
> circus it's adjusting.
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> Be absolutely Icebox.
> 
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