I made this exact same mistake on an OT MK1 - removed the grease while performing maintenance on a dodgy encoder - but I also managed to fix it without replacing the whole thing. I used a small amount of a very specific grease which was recommended by a fellow 'naut. I’m a complete amateur and even I was able to manage it. Will dig out the grease I used and post a pic if that would be useful to someone. There’s a thread detailing my adventures on here somewhere.
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Nice bit of detective work there! Yes, that’s the one I used. Still have it in my toolbox.
However, I also got a tube of Electrolube MPG, as per the suggestion of @plastic_pizza on the other thread.
it’s more expensive but I’m curious about the deoxit fader grease.
it is apparently more viscous than fader lube and I think a lot of people are recommending the fader lube in reference to encoders, I need this for the analog volume potentiometer, the only one in the machine. But regarding the grease if you have to open the pot in order to apply it then the purchase would have no meaning because I can fire up my soldering iron and replace the pot at a lower cost. I swear these elektron alpha volume pots are the same 10k pots I buy from amplified parts for 2 bucks each. I’m going to wait to hear back from elektron care before I jump to any conclusions I guess.
For the time being out of respect for the informed opinion so gently gifted by a recent visitor to this thread, I came up with another stop gap measure to keep any dust out of the shaft base which has also (without inducing hamful friction) centered the shaft and provided a bit more resistance. Since it’s only temporary I’m not concerned with any other lasting effects of this method but I don’t see how it could be damaging anything and it will keep the dreaded dust of yore off the conductive strip and prevent further ruin.
just some electrical heat shrink tubing I shaped to slip over the bushing on the bottom which tapers to fit and center around the shaft at the top. completely removable and of course, I shaped it using various “jigs” so as not to agitate the pot in the process. I don’t see what harm this could cause, the wobble is gone and dust is blocked until I can relube or replace.
Just to clarify, contact cleaner and control cleaner aren’t the same. Control cleaner has a lubricant and is good for pots and SOME encoders ad switches (but not all). Contact cleaner is for jacks and things, and it doesn’t ahve a lubricant. If you use it to clean a pot or encoder it can actually clean out the lubricant that’s already in there. That will make the control feel les smooth in the short run, and make it wear out a lot faster in the long run.
Don’t clean pots or encoders with contact cleaner! Use control cleaner!
In general, it’s better to avoid using any cleaner if you don’t absolutely have to. If it’s a little bit of crackle you could probably get away with just exercising it for a while.
A good thing to do in general is keep all of your controls at zero when you aren’t using your gear. The point in a pot where the wiper touches the resister is where it’s most likely to oxidize, corrode, collect dust, and generally get scratchy. If you keep all of your controls all the way down, at least when they eventually get scratchy it will probably happen at a spot you don’t normally use much.
The main volume is digital, and the knob that controls it is an encoder. The only analog control on the OT is headphone volume. A dirty or worn encoder could cause value jumps but it wouldn’t cause crackle.
If the crackle is audible on the main outputs AND the headphones then the first thing to check would probably be cables and the actual jacks on the OT. I don’t know if the DT has a digital or analog master volume, but from wha you’re describing it sounds like it’s an analog control (or a bug).
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I’m sure you are correct. thank you
Don’t be too sure!
UPDATE: After using the OT more often it seems like volume pot and the trig 1 work perfectly; it still occur the one below even if lesser than before
this is mostly happening when I p-lock as an example the parameters of encoder B, the next encoder © tweaks some parameters without touching it. It could be some dust or stuff in between the encoders?
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