6 channel ganged pot

[daatkins]

Hi everyone,
I'm building a sound system for my computer and need a 6 way ganged pot to control the volume of my soundcard's 5.1 channels of output.

I've tried to usual sources (Farnell, RS, Percyaudio) but with no luck.

Does anyone know of a source?

Regards,
David

[fdegrove]

Hello,

You could give these a try?

http://www.elma.com/

Rgds,

[Petter]

You will find info on ganged posts if you search the forum. If you want high-end expensive, consider DACT or variants based on Elma etc. Otherwise, search Bourns, Alps etc. websites.

Some types stack up. I don't know how many sell el-cheapo variants in that configuration, though.

Petter

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

The cheapest way to go, excluding the shipping from the US is this pot from All Electronics.

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...50K&type=store

This is a DIY project. You have to disassemble 6 of these pots and reassemble the resistive elements to the front/plate shaft assembly with threaded rod and nuts.

Several companies in the US will assemble ModPot resistive elements but they quoted me $50 each for 10 assembled 8 gang pots and a $50 set-up change. Such assembly services are probably available in the UK. The assemblers and distributors I talked with were firm in their rules about not selling the separate elements.

[Orgonom]

Very good Panasonic Silvercarbon!

[URL=http://www.thel-audioworld.de/bauteile/regler/regler.htm[/URL]

[peranders]

Have you ever considered a "IC-pot"? They are very good nowadays. The drawback is that you have to fix the control gear.

[jgwinner]

Bill:

I bought a few ALPS potentiometers from Brigarelectronics.com, but they don't come apart like the ones you mention earlier.

Brigar Electronics potentiometers

Which is a shame, as they even had a motorized version.

I'm tempted to try drilling them out, but I'm working on other stuff at the moment. I guess I'll order a couple of pot's from All electronics, might be easier.

[daatkins]

I forgot to mention the outcome of my original post (the one that started this thread)...

Well, I ended up using some 10K trimmer-type pots from Farnell, for a grand cost of £0.17 each, that have a hole instead of a shaft (no jokes, please) so it's easy to gang a whole load of them together. The quality isn't great - the tolerance is 20% - but they're only for a computer sound system so absolute sound quality isn't necessary.

Here's a pic. Don't worry, the match stick is only for demonstration purposes! The machine shop guys at my company will make a shaft from aluminium when they have some spare time.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

Nice one,

David.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

I've done that with trimpots myself when I needed an 8 section pot to vary the frequency of both channels of a 4 pole active low-pass filter. An allen wrench makes a perfect shaft.

[dhaen]

David,

"Well, I ended up using some 10K trimmer-type pots"

That's how I remember the audio kits by Sinclair around 1970 were made.
Of course they were linear law.