How do you clean pots?

[justonwo]

I know that you use Deoxit, which I presume is some kind of solvent. But what is the actual process? Do you have to disassemble the pot? Or do you simply spray it in there? How do you remove the excess liquid and how do you get out the dirt without actually opening the pot?

And, by the way, the reason I ask is that a friend's Peavey amp makes staticky scratching noises just like when you rotate a dirty pot, except that it makes these noises without touching the pots. I figured cleaning them would be a cheap and easy first step.

[John Phillips]

Most pots have a little notch in the top of the casing (directly opposite the pins) - this is actually the 'stop' which limits the travel of the rotor inside, but it's also a very convenient place to spray in the contact cleaner, using the thin tube. Don't worry about what happens to the excess liquid (it evaporates off) and dirt (it remains in the pot), but as long as it isn't actually on the track it doesn't cause any harm.

I would never replace pots which will simply clean up. I've seen far too many nice old amps and guitars with replacements (usually much worse quality than the originals), when a simple squirt of contact cleaner would have made them work like new. Most pots are designed for an operational life of tens of thousands of cycles, which is far more than most ever get in an amp, even for people who routinely turn the knobs to zero when not using the amp. The problem is almost always dust on the track rather than wear. The only ones which do commonly wear out in normal use are wah and volume pedal pots, and guitar volume controls, especially for players who do 'violin' effects with them.

On the Peavey, the first thing to check is the effects loop return jack, and/or the power amp input if it has one of those as well. These jacks have a switch inside which breaks the signal path, and frequently corrodes and makes poor contact, especially if the loops are never used. You can check if it's this simply by connecting a cable from the send to the return (or preamp out to power amp in) and see if it goes away. If it does, you can probably fix it with a little contact cleaner sprayed into the jack, but if it's very bad you might have to get inside and clean the contacts manually with a little bit of folded sandpaper.

[Glenncohen]

I saw Gerald Weber use this de-ox-id (http://www.de-ox-id.com/) on his video so I bought some at the local electronics store. It is great stuff (toggle switches, switchcraft jacks, POTS, etc.)

[cochese]

Ajax and a little Brillo!

[justonwo]

Excellent. I used some electronics cleaner last night on ever pot on his amp. The scratching went away, and now it's ready for sale!

Thanks for your help, guys.