I picked up this boombox from Frank (Hemiguy2006) at the last Sunshine mix. When he handed it to me he said that the volume pot was "shot - well beyond any help from deoxit." Well.... since the price was right and we were all in a hurry to pack up and head out.... the box made it's way into the back of the Highlander and home it came. It has been sitting on a shelf since the initial test revealed that the volume was very, very scratchy... and sometimes prone to jump to max volume and sometimes cut out altogether. Something was definitely very wrong in there! Too bad, because the radio and tape work perfectly!
Finally, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting here blogging on Boomboxery and the box caught my eye on the self. It was around 11pm or so and I decided to do something just a bit more productive with the remainder of the night than sit here and type & read! I grabbed a long Philips head screwdriver and proceeded to open her up!
The inside of this box is actually quite easy to work in... and when looking at the volume pot I was a bit discouraged when I saw that I'd have to remove the rear board to de-solder the contacts and get that part out for eventual swap. But, upon looking at it closely, the contact stems are so long that I came with with an idea.
At the back of the volume pot there are little tabs that are bent over to hold the various parts together. I figured that if I were to gently open those tabs, I could open up the volume pot and see what the trouble was and either clean or fix what was causing the bad contact issues. Granted, it would be risky, but since the worst that could happen is that I'd need to replace the entire volume pot (which is pretty much what I thought I was going to have to do anyway) I figured I'd give it a try.... Not to mention that actually sourcing a replacement would likely be more challenging than the risk involved in what I was proposing to do...
Once I got in there, here is what I saw, bottom/back of volume pot on the left of pic:
I bent back the tabs and the long connectors to expose the bottom of the volume pot stem. Here you see the contact points. There are two separate brush type contacts that are attached to the bottom of the plastic stem. One of them had popped off completely and was moving around lose inside the mechanism. Surely this was the cause of the erratic behavior of the control.
I should have taken a pic of the parts as I found them, but from this pic below (as I was putting it back together) you can kinda see there the two separate metal brush pieces. The inside piece is the one that had popped lose.
Very basic looking mechanism without the stem inside:
I ended up roughing up the bottom of the plastic a bit and mixing up a small drop of epoxy. I carefully clamped the freshly epoxied items together and let it cure overnight. Lighting makes this look worse than it does in person... but the epoxy is a solid connection. I don't think this will pop lose again anytime soon.
And here is what the other side of the contact looks like. Here it is bent back to allow me to pull out the stem:
Upon putting it back together, it's about 90% perfect... there are still some slight hiccups... but nothing at all like it was before. The volume is much, much, much more manageable now than it was. I am thinking maybe I should have given a bit more care to make sure the two brush parts touch or don't touch? Frankly, I wasn't sure if they should or shouldn't...? Anyway... at least now it's a functional boomer again!!! Before the fix it was, for the most part, unusable.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting here blogging on Boomboxery and the box caught my eye on the self. It was around 11pm or so and I decided to do something just a bit more productive with the remainder of the night than sit here and type & read! I grabbed a long Philips head screwdriver and proceeded to open her up!
The inside of this box is actually quite easy to work in... and when looking at the volume pot I was a bit discouraged when I saw that I'd have to remove the rear board to de-solder the contacts and get that part out for eventual swap. But, upon looking at it closely, the contact stems are so long that I came with with an idea.
At the back of the volume pot there are little tabs that are bent over to hold the various parts together. I figured that if I were to gently open those tabs, I could open up the volume pot and see what the trouble was and either clean or fix what was causing the bad contact issues. Granted, it would be risky, but since the worst that could happen is that I'd need to replace the entire volume pot (which is pretty much what I thought I was going to have to do anyway) I figured I'd give it a try.... Not to mention that actually sourcing a replacement would likely be more challenging than the risk involved in what I was proposing to do...
Once I got in there, here is what I saw, bottom/back of volume pot on the left of pic:
I bent back the tabs and the long connectors to expose the bottom of the volume pot stem. Here you see the contact points. There are two separate brush type contacts that are attached to the bottom of the plastic stem. One of them had popped off completely and was moving around lose inside the mechanism. Surely this was the cause of the erratic behavior of the control.
I should have taken a pic of the parts as I found them, but from this pic below (as I was putting it back together) you can kinda see there the two separate metal brush pieces. The inside piece is the one that had popped lose.
Very basic looking mechanism without the stem inside:
I ended up roughing up the bottom of the plastic a bit and mixing up a small drop of epoxy. I carefully clamped the freshly epoxied items together and let it cure overnight. Lighting makes this look worse than it does in person... but the epoxy is a solid connection. I don't think this will pop lose again anytime soon.
And here is what the other side of the contact looks like. Here it is bent back to allow me to pull out the stem:
Upon putting it back together, it's about 90% perfect... there are still some slight hiccups... but nothing at all like it was before. The volume is much, much, much more manageable now than it was. I am thinking maybe I should have given a bit more care to make sure the two brush parts touch or don't touch? Frankly, I wasn't sure if they should or shouldn't...? Anyway... at least now it's a functional boomer again!!! Before the fix it was, for the most part, unusable.
Glad to hear its up to par 
