Hoarse Sweetest Whispers

[sl-15]

My sweetest attenuators in my FP3 started to become scratchy after about 7 months of moderate use. By scratchy I mean when you turn them up or down there is lots of static and often one channel goes silent and you have to jiggle and repeatably turn back and forth to get it to make contact again. I have lived with it for the last 6 month getting by with repeated turning to 'clean the contacts" with less and less success. Last week I decided to try Deoxit as some have reported good results on the old forum. I poured some in at the shaft from the top after taking of the knobs. It worked wonders for about a week, but now it is back to not making contact so one or both channels become silent. I have the feeling that the one thing that helps - turning them back and forth - makes it even worse in the long run. I wish I could update to Goldpoints but that is out of the question right now financially. Is there somebody who has a better idea than Deoxit or how to apply it better? Maybe some denatured alcohol and compressed air to clean out the Deoxit will help? The sweetest whispers look like you might be able to open them up from the bottom but the question is if you can get them back together. Anybody ever tried to do that?  Any help and suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

[bernieclub]

The switches can easily be re-assembled.   I think that if you take them apart, the problem will be wipers that are out of adjustment, with less than ideal spring tension, rather than dirt.      One look will make it obvious.
Bernie

[Paul Birkeland]

What might your budget be for an attenuator? 

I personally would use a Stereo PEC pot from Digikey ($33), then buy one more input selector switch for the other hole to make a switchable input pad.  All this can be done for around $50, if you're interested let me know and I will post some instructions. 

-Paul

[sl-15]

Paul,
unemployment makes it impossible for me right now to spend any money on stereo stuff. I rather wait until i have a job again and then get the goldpoints. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Bernie,
Sounds like you have taken them apart. Is there a certain way how you do this?  I am pretty handy with stuff like this, I love to open up things and see how they work but I do not want springs flying at me or something like that.

[bernieclub]

Yes, I have taken them apart, but it's been awhile.     No springs will fly, but do proceed carefully.   Just pry up the little tabs that hold the whole thing together and separate.   If I remember correctly, I think I unsoldered the wires to make things easier.   The mechanism is surprisingly simple.   Be sure to reassemble with everything aligned as it was, so the mechanical stop is where it belongs.

[sl-15]

Great. Thanks for the help. I will give this a try hopefully later today and report back with findings.

[syncro]

....
I personally would use a Stereo PEC pot from Digikey ($33), then buy one more input selector switch for the other hole to make a switchable input pad.  All this can be done for around $50, if you're interested let me know and I will post some instructions. 

-Paul

This solution sounds like something I might be interested in.   Please post some instructions whenever you have time. 

These "Sweetest Whispers" attenuators on stock ForePlay III are getting very annoying - "hoarse" is a good description.   They have seen moderate use since build (only 10 months ago!), and now exhibit poor contact regularly.  It occurs more and more frequently on the positions I use most often.

I will try some De-Oxit first, as suggested from the top without dismantling.  But from the posted experience of others the problem is systemic of these inexpensive "switches."   From what I have read on this forum, next would be to disassemble factory switches and manually adjust spring tension, applying more contact cleaner in the process.

[sl-15]

Okay, it has almost been a year and I totally forgot to post my findings. So here it goes:
I took the whispers apart which was pretty easy and documented my steps with photos. Since I did the 'fix' I have had no more problems with static or bad contact.
First, treating the whispers with de-oxit from the top does not help, it makes things temporarily better because it sort of lubricates the switch but it actually never gets to the gold contacts inside. After opening them this became quite obvious.
Please see attached pictures.
You can see the contacts on the top (upper contact) and the little spring like contact on the bottom (lower contact). Next step is to pull the lower plate with the lower contact out of the base. Underneath is a spring with two ball bearings on each side which are likely to shoot out, so pull that part off slowly, trying to cup your hand around it so they do not fly all over the place. Now you can see the 'indexing' part of the switch. In my opinion and findings it is really important to lubricate this section so the switch moves smoothly. This will allow the indexing to work better and the contacts are matching up better. I cleaned all the golden contact parts with deoxit and then with denatured alcohol. I then bend the lower contact that pushes agains the upper contact up so that it will make better contact, kind of like increasing its 'spring' tension. After putting everything back together I noticed that this was a big mistake, the tension was too high and the lower cantact got stuck while turning the switch. I noticed something went really wrong and opened the switch back up again. The lower contact bend completely backwards and I thought I just destroyed the switch. I bend it back in its original shape as good as I could. I put the whole thing back togheter, now with the lower contact having way less pressure against the upper contact. This turned out to be the trick. Once spring tension of that lower contact is less, it mates way better with the upper contact plate and is also not scratching away on the gold plating which might cause the static in the first place.
So to summ this long complicated rambling up: take care that the ball bearings don't shoot out at you when you take everything apart. Grease the lower indexing assembly. Try reducing the contact pressure by carefully pressing the lower contact togheter.
Unfortunately I do not have any pictures off the bend backwards lower contact but please feel free to contact me for high res. pictures or better explanation if something is unclear. I found that this little fix helped quite a bit. Is it worth the work? Probally not, but it would be a great thing to do to the whispers before you install your kit.
Cheers, stefan

[syncro]

Stefan,  thanks for chiming back in with your results.   Glad to hear that you are not plagued with this problem anymore.   Encouraging - and it will save me the step of dripping de-oxit into the top of these switches.

[sl-15]

I forgot to mention that you have to desolder a few wires to get the switch open in the first place. I can not quite remember which ones but it was not such a big deal.

[syncro]

I gave it a go with switches still mounted and wires connected.  Once the three spring catches are pried back the bottom (upside-down) hinges open on the wires and the contacts are exposed for application of a little de-oxit on a cue-tip.   Wiring felt a little stiff, but no de-soldering was required for access.  Cleared up my problem assuredly.  I adjusted the spring to make stronger contact on one of them, but the other I left in the manufactured shape.  They feel different from each other.  The adjusted one has more friction, the original turns more easily.  We'll see if one or the other gets noisy again.  For now they're sweetly whispering.  Thanks for the thread!