[sdiy] Slide pot cleaning
Maarten
synthmaarten at artefacts.nl
Tue Apr 28 15:37:50 CEST 2026
I prefer to take slide and rotary potentiometers apart and clean them
with isopropanol. I use some silicone grease on the mechanical part to
make them run smooth again. With all other methods most of the dirt
stays inside the potentiometer and you can not clean the wiper.
Sometimes it is possible to clean the tracks with a cotton swab from the
outside. I flatten the cotton swab with a pair of needle nose pliers. I
stopped cleaning the CTS sliders which are used in Arp synths, I replace
them with Bourns sliders on an adapter PCB.
Cheers,
Maarten
Op 28-4-2026 om 15:16 schreef Jacob Watters via Synth-diy:
> A very important thing to keep in mind is to not use any chemical on
> the carbon pad on the inside bottom of the slider. You can wear it off
> by doing that. Just use a dry cleaning swab to wipe off the dust. You
> can use alcohol on the rest of the parts.
> *
> *
> *Jacob Watters*
> JacobWatters.com <http://jacobwatters.com/>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 8:37 AM H.Sergio Alves via Synth-diy
> <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> Why haven’t you vacuum right after taking it out from under the
> bed? That would have saved you a lot of work… I remember fixing
> one many years ago and the faders weren’t that bad to take apart,
> clean with 70%IPA (so it won’t damage the tracks) and it worked
> nicely. It was a fair amount of hours tho… i did replace that
> crumbling foam entirely with a thin layer of black felt (almost as
> thin as see through). Client never complained (and did sent more
> stuff to fix). Best of luck and lots of patience ;)
>
> On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 at 13:27, Mike Bryant
> <mbryant at futurehorizons.com> wrote:
>
> Felt makes a good shield for faders.
>
> But unfortunately unless they are the really expensive P&G or
> similar ones, taking them apart will most probably actually
> make things worse. We did use to have a spray for cleaning
> sliders but I think it got banned around 2005
>
> Best bet is to buy new ones of the same size.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf
> of rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk <rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk>
> *Sent:* 28 April 2026 12:53
> *To:* Synth Diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> *Subject:* [sdiy] Slide pot cleaning
> Can anyone recommend a good process for cleaning dust our of
> slide
> potentiometers on an old Roland SH-09?
>
> The synth was stored underneath a bed in the spare room when
> we moved
> house about ten years ago, and I *thought* it had a dust cover
> over it!
> It turns out it didn't (>.<) and the slide pots are in quite
> bad shape
> now.
>
> The synth is functional but the sliders feel scratchy and
> there is
> obviously intermittent electrical contact because cutoff, LFO
> rate, etc
> jump around a lot when the sliders are adjusted. The slide
> switches are
> okay, and the keys aren't too bad after a bit of use.
>
> I've removed the front panel and also found that there is some
> sort of
> black felt/foam sheet that was obviously originally meant to
> be a dust
> shield for the slide pots. The problem is that this material
> has become
> brittle and literally crumbles upon touching. Can anyone
> recommend a
> good material to replace this with?
>
> If I can fix the pots with a squirt of some magic spray that
> would be
> fantastic, but I'm also prepared to de-solder then and
> carefully open
> them up for cleaning if that is what is required. I would
> rather take
> time to do the job properly, but not sure what is the best way to
> proceed? I have access to a dry compressed-air line, dish
> soap, cotton
> buds, Isopropyl alcohol, acetone, silicone grease,
> soldering/de-soldering tools, etc, but don't want to risk
> making the
> problem worse without asking for advice first.
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice,
>
> -Richie,
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