Repairing crackly volume knobs/speaker pots (simple)

[da na]

I'll preface this by saying, yesterday I picked up a great pair of Altec Lansing PC speakers for free. Sounded great but had a terrible crackle and would cut out whenever you touched the volume knob. Spoiler contains before and after videos for the TL;DR.

Noticed a coffee stain on the pot so thought a dirty pot might be the extent of the issue. So I disassembled it, and luckily the potentiometer has a big hole in the back not covered by the metal plate. Soaked a Q-tip in isopropyl alcohol and shoved it inside the hole, wiggled it a bit. Still crackled but the speakers no longer randomly cut out. Eventually after a few minutes of slowly rotating the pot while holding the q-tip inside, it no longer crackles at all.

For potentiometers with a metal back, they are often removable, but if not your best bet is likely soaking it in rubbing alcohol for a few minutes, swirling it.

Spoiler

 

 

Sounds absolutely fantastic now. I then tried a similar method, soaking the pot, on some other slightly crackly speakers and it worked quite well. 

Hope this was helpful! 

[SimplyChunk]

Nice one.  WD40 + a little friction, is great for crackly pots too

[OddOod]

 would white lithium spray work better? WD tends to gum up after a few months because it's not a lube but a penetrator

3 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

WD40

 

[RollyShed]

Why not use spray specifically made for contact cleaning? I've had to deal with noisy pots for decades, 6 decades at least. One problem was commonly caused by leaking coupling capacitors in valve radios.