Repairing the copper swipes on the pots....

[lakecat]

Yesterday, I received one AR3 for parts. Took out the drivers and all worked....hurray! I then took the pots out and opened them. I found the copper swipes in them had corroded and where the dimple was, it had corroded to a hole in the copper.....sigh. I was ready to pitch them and thought of an idea and tried it today. I took a piece of 12/2 wire and cleaned the insulation off about an inch up and then cleaned it with emery cloth. I then attached a drill bit the size of the wire and drilled and cleaned out the corroded hole in swipe. I stuck wire into hole so that an 1/8" stuck thru and soldered the wire to swipe. When cooled, I cut wire close to swipe and sanded with emery cloth to make it smooth but still sticking out slightly for contact. Put the swipes back in pots, added a little D-Grease, and put them together. It seems to work well on the springs but will have to wait to see if they work. I don't see why not and seems to be better than trying to use a dot of solder on it.

Anyone else try this?

[owlsplace]

Sounds like a good plan ... I was thinking of silver soldering a sterling silver contact pad at some point but never got around to it. These pots suffer from galvanic erosion caused by too many different types of metal in their construction.

Roger

[genek]

You could try filling the hole with copper solder. Flows at about the same temp as silver solder.

[lakecat]

8 hours ago, genek said:

You could try filling the hole with copper solder. Flows at about the same temp as silver solder.

Good idea.....but no copper solder here and was using what was available.

[GD70]

I've got the silver solder route with success. Just make sure the wiper is good and clean, or sometimes the solder gets fussy and will not stick well.