Help on Gear Maintenance

Hi Guys, just wanted to have some infos and help concerning a small maintenance with an old TLA Valve equalizer i have and want to sell,
it's working good, just had some crackling pots wich were the cause of Caps leakage, i just changed them all, i had all the caps in stock what a luck.
Now it's ok on one channel, no more pops and crackling but not for channel two , the Freq Pots LMF and HMF are just impossible to turn without having LOUD pops and scratch, i left some caps unchanged on both channels because i didn't had them in stock, seems like they will have to go also.
Anyway the other thing is concerning the switches i have on each Freq. band for on/off and also on HF LF Cutoff On/Off they look like the ones you can find on the Jeff's VP series preamp, PCB type with cap, they are still crackling and some just mutes audio a little when pushed, not all the time tough, is this a sign of switch failure? want to know before i order.
So for the EQ controller board i just changed all the 100uF 25V caps, left some 1uf 50V and 4.7uf 50V in, and all the other 100uf 25V in the Tube board are unchanged. The PCB is from 1998, so i think most of you guys would say recapp all the way.

Thanks for the feedback.

are you sure the pots themselves arent damaged?

I had to swap out some gain pots in TLA gear before.

Jake

On one channel the pots are good, but yes Master Gain is still not very nice but ok, i had tiny pops after Powering the unit and turning Gain, i'll change it, but all the rest si ok recapp worked.
Now channel two is another story, from the Loud sound of the Freq pot seem like it is dead dunno, still a rookie in that domain, they are 4 Deck type Alpha pot, maybe Rev Log pots...

PS: I tought of caps, because first i read this on prodigy, thanks to this forum, and also because all the pots had crackling going on, would have been bad luck if all failed at the same time...

Are your switches pcb mount Lorlins? TLA used them a lot, cheap switches and they crap out.

No they aren't lorlins, they are like this, not exactlly this but similar, DPDT.

http://classicapi.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=51_52&products_id=88

It's this gear:
http://www.tlaudio.co.uk/docs/products/EQ-2.shtml

Just had a mail from TLA for the price of those Alpha 4 gang pots, 16.8 pounds Each exl.VAT, exl.Shipping  holly molly i need 3 "ouch" for getting this one up and running nicely...

No they aren't lorlins, they are like this, not exactlly this but similar, DPDT.

Click to expand...

Caig deoxit has worked well for me on these type switches - transforming them from being horribly erratic and staticky-poppy to trouble free operation.  I have come across some that don't respond well to spray cleaning though. I don't recall the brand.

Hopefully changing the remaining caps will reduce more of the popping and with some  luck you may not have to  splurge for all new 4 gangs


.

Allright a little update because as always these little threads in prodigy helps a lot.

The contact spray did the job very well for the switches, quiet now and no more mutes, thanks for that Lassoharp, i've used this in the past but had no luck, so i tottally forgot it's use, will not now...

Now for the Alpha pots, well juste resoldered the pads with fresh solder, and a little contact spray on each gang, nice to have those little holes on top of each gang, now the messy Freq pots and the main volume pots are quiet as before, don't even need to change the remaining caps, all is good and will take the road again  ;D.

Glad to hear that worked out ok.  Sometimes it's better to have open holes in the pots for cleaning access.  I've had sealed ones that get scratchy and there's very little you can do then.