Help me find a 4-gang, 50k pot?

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Hi all,

I need to replace a pot in a subwoofer preamp. It controls the freq of 2 2nd order Sallen-Key filters (or LR4), thus the 4 resistor elements. The circuit works fine if I insert discrete resistors although 3 of the end-to-end resistances are 3MR or more - so it's amazingly a failure of 3/4 of the resistive elements!

Please see the pics of the pot I removed from the preamp. I would describe it as: 4 gang, horizontal PCB mount, C taper, 50k, no click/detent, 12.5mm above PCB with 20mm long, 6mm knurled length, 18 teeth shaft.

I contacted the manufacturer of the sub amp, and they didn't design it and don't support it. The pot is marked with "HV" on the pot bodies, but I don't know if that's the manufacturer or something else. So no luck there.

I then looked at Mouser, Digikey, and other places in the US without any luck. Googling didn't turn up any parts. Can anyone suggest someplace (preferably in the US) that might carry this pot?

I found the part I need at Taiwan Alpha (part number: RV124F-21_-20K-C50K-_0) and Alpha Products (part number: Alpha Products 3RP/1240G 2 A B C 50K 0), but neither one had the part available and would require a 1000 piece order to make any. Although I will say that the Taiwan Alpha folks were exceptionally generous and courteous to me. I also found a few Asian suppliers with seemingly compatible parts, but I didn't contact them because I'm not feeling like it would be worthwhile.

Any suggestions of how to get a replacement pot would be wonderful. TIA!
 

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I've read that a 100k resistor across pin 1 and 3 of a 100k linear pot will make a 50k reverse log.

I'll amdit I don't have the math skills to cofirm that though.

OK, I guess I read wrong. :eek:

After more searching and reading, it looks like you can take a linear taper pot of 5x the value you need, and the put a resistor of 1.25x your desired RevLog taper across pin 2 and 3.

50k x 5 = B250k
50k x 1.25 = 62.5k

So for C50k, you put a 62.5k resistor across pin 2 and 3 of a B250k.
 
I did a search at google.com for

quad concentric pot OR potentiometer

and found this PDF about a family of modular pots and switches that can be configured however you want (up to four sections concentrically):

http://www.potentiometers.com/pdf/catalog70.pdf .

And the link below has new and used parts for Tektronix and HP/Agilent test equipment, which includes lots of interesting pot configurations (and lots of other cool parts!). Maybe it'll give you some information about who makes what.

Tektronix Electronic Test Equipment Parts - Pots, Resistor Networks

Cheers,

Tom Gootee
 
Do a search at google.com for:

multi-gang pot OR potentiometer

Note that the "OR" must be in upper case (caps).

Also, you might want to check out the Vishay / Sfernice P9A series. They can have up to seven modules on a shaft. Mouser.com has the dual 50K (but not sure if they carry other than linear taper). You could probably buy two of them and make them into a quad. Go to mouser and search for 72-p9a. You can see an older mouser catalog page with them, here: http://www.mouser.com/catalog/629/544.PDF . (Looks like the price on the dual 50k linear ones has about doubled since then.)
 
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Hi Garyepe,

Yes! Well, almost. The lead spacing is a bit different, but the pot you show may work for me. I would need to the B0 circuit configuration with either KQ or KR shaft style. There are other parameters, like resistance value, taper, etc. that are also important, but it looks like you're showing physically a compatible pot.

Email sent.
 
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