Fader Lubrication Advice for Yamaha PM2000

I recently bought a Yamaha PM2000 console and I'm going  through and doing some cleaning/recapping, that sort of stuff.

I'm wondering about lubricating the channel faders.  I've searched for advice but couldn't find a clear answer.  Electrically they seem okay, but the feel of them is rough and inconsistent.  I'd like to open them up, clean out the gunk, and re-lubricate the guide rails so they travel more smoothly. 

I pulled one out and did this using Caig Fader Grease (which is silicon grease) on the rails (not the actual fader track), and the result was not spectacular.

What have people had good luck with?  Vaseline?

If they're anything like the faders on a pm700 then I think replacement is the only option.  It seems that the plastic rings that connect the fader to the metal guides wears out over time and stops being smooth.

For what it's worth I cleaned mine with distilled water and then lubricated the metal guides which helped some but the looseness of the plastic pieces caused stiff fader movement.

my method involves opening and dismantling the fader,
I clean everything with distilled water and Isopropyl alcohol, then clean the carbon track smoothly with a Qtip with Deoxit fader lube F100L.

As for the rails or mechanical moving parts I use some thick Grease, never used light grease or silicon grease, I normally use that thick yellowish Auto grease and I like the results.

Hey I recently tried a bit of the thick general purpose grease on old carbon fader rails I recently cleaned... makes them work great again!  Thanks.

I'd just use 99 percent isoprophyl. That's what I used and they haven't had any problems since (3 years or so?)

I also figured out that the biggest resistance physically is actually that little felt thingy. I started just ripping them out of the fader. So I'll have to clean them more often. But the trade off is smoother travel.

Also, cleaning the plastic thingy and the metal pole and lubing them with something that's good for plastic and metal.

I've cleaned the guide rails  and plastic slider with iso alcohol, and tried lubing them alternately with Caig Fader Grease and 3-1 Dry Spray Lubricant.

The Fader Grease felt a little too sticky and uneven.  The 3-1 spray worked pretty well but the feel was a little fast.  It lacked that smooth-but-damped motion of a really nice fader. 

I'm wondering if the key to getting that damped feel is in the 3rd wiper that is not connected electrically - seems to be there only for mechanical stability.  It slides along its own isolated metal tracks.  Maybe lubing that with some slightly thicker grease could work?

Matt C said:

I've cleaned the guide rails  and plastic slider with iso alcohol, and tried lubing them alternately with Caig Fader Grease and 3-1 Dry Spray Lubricant.

The Fader Grease felt a little too sticky and uneven.  The 3-1 spray worked pretty well but the feel was a little fast.  It lacked that smooth-but-damped motion of a really nice fader. 

I'm wondering if the key to getting that damped feel is in the 3rd wiper that is not connected electrically - seems to be there only for mechanical stability.  It slides along its own isolated metal tracks.  Maybe lubing that with some slightly thicker grease could work?

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I already answer that in a previous post if you want  "smooth-but-damped motion" you need thicker grease.
Go to the local auto-shop

Oh,

I forgot to mention. When I got my PM2K, my faders were probably in the worst condition I'd ever seen ANY faders in.  Like, don't hurt you shoulder trying to move them sort of thing. I disassembled them, and actually put the plastic part that both the poles go through into the dishwasher. I don't know what happened in there, but it seemed to me that the holes in the plastic parts were narrower after the wash. I could have just been imagining it, and there was always very little tolerance concerning said plastic holes.

But the solution was to drill them out ever so slightly larger. A destructive move, but a good one after it was said and done. There was less resistance after lubing them up.

Have you tried removing the felt on one to see what it feels like? That turned out to help a lot as well.

And also the pressure with which the pins touch the track. There were a few I had to disassemble multiple times to get the pins so that they still made contact, but barely pushed on the track.

This is the stuff I used for the poles/plastic holes: https://www.amazon.com/Corning-Molykote-Synthetic-Lubricant-Container/dp/B00B51C76I

For the pins and the track, I did try some CAIG faderlube of some sort I believe. Can't remember which kind but it did end up making them scratchy in the long run. So I had to take them all out again and clean with 99 percent alchohol. Grrrrr.

Still, not all of them had very smooth travel, until I discovered that taking out the felt improved travel quite a bit.