replace or try fixing broken ELMA rotary switch?

[martthie_08]

I have a Chandlar LteeD-1 here on the bench and two rotary switches are buggy. One of them was a Lorlin, so I replaced that one without thinking about it.

What really surprised me, is that the other one is the gain switch, which is an ELMA switch (that is probably more expensive than all other switches and pots combined in that unit).

The switch works on most positions, but drops out completely on maybe four to six positions, meaning there is no audio at all on the output. I checked for bad solder points on the switch, but it seems fine to me. Will I need to replace the switch or is there anything else I could try?

The unit is about 1,5 years old and has seen only light use... strange...

Thanks, Marten

 

[chrissugar]

Before you change the ELMA you should try to clean it. DACT, the stepped attenuator manufacturer use ELMA switches and they recomend in case of cleaning the Tuner 600 by Kontakt Chemie.
Read here:
http://www.dact.com/html/contact_cleaning.html

chrissugar

P.S. You are lucky, in Germany you can buy it from Conrad.

 

[Tekay]

Sounds like you have a oxidated switch, the output switch is a bunch of a resistors connected in serie on the switch so if you have a broken resistor or bad solder all positions aftar that would be dead!

 

[martthie_08]

chrissugar and Tekay,

Tuner 600 did the job, thank you for that!

It is nice to have conrad around the block

This is a nice sounding box btw., construction looks a little prototype-ish, has a low serial number though, model and serial number are hand-written. It has pcb's "neve" marked on them b283, b284 and b205. 6x2 rotary switches are Alpha, 12x1 is a Lorlin and all pots are PEC, ...

cheers, Marten

 

[chrissugar]

[quote author="martthie_08"]
Tuner 600 did the job, thank you for that!
[/quote]

Good to know. :thumb:

chrissugar

 

[matthias]

@ marthie: do you think you could make some pictures??

upload is very simple here (without registration)

http://www.imagehosting.us/

 

[chrissugar]

Yes, yes, pictures please. :grin:

chrissugar

 

[martthie_08]

no problem, my digital camera is not the best though, I will wait until sunlight comes out again... Any thing specific you are interested in? I will do my best.

 

[Tekay]

Nice you fixed it!
I missunderstod you and thought your where fixing a TG1!
A three deck neve gainswitch has both serie and parallell resistors!

 

[martthie_08]

look here, this is just to give you an impression on what is going on inside this box, unfortunately I couldn't get a better focus on those images, my digi cam is really ****** with macro shots...

http://www.monochromepopgroup.com/marten/lteedone/