[sdiy] ALPS components durability?

[Tim Parkhurst]

On 11/2/05, karl dalen <dalenkarl at yahoo.se> wrote:
>
> Anyone with real life experience of ALPS components?
>
> Particularely their potentiometers such as RK09D and K series?
> Alps states that these can be used for musical instruments,
> specs states durability of 5000 cycles!!!
>
> Thats horrible bad figures,i did a qick test, in 15 sec i
> turned 52 cycles thats 208 for a minute and stagering
> 12480 cycles for an hour!!! (if i could keep the speed up).
> This is baader then a ordinary chinese made trim pot!!
>
> Anyhow, ALPS want 0,75 euro each for this
> potentiometer, i call that fraudalent behaviour!
>
> I also noticed that their joystics melted during soldering!!
>
> Im pussled, ALPS used to be good!
>
> REG
> KD
>
>
>  Hi Karl,

I would say that it is VERY rare to use a panel pot continuously. Think
about how often you turn a pot in real life. I don't think I've ever been in
a situation where I've needed to turn a pot 208 times in an hour, much less
in a minute (think about it: tweak a parameter four times a minute for a
FULL HOUR and you've only moved the pot 240 times). If you REALLY need to
turn a pot that much, I'd say it's time to make that a voltage-controlled
parameter and let an LFO do the work!
 5000 cycles is fairly good, although pots with 10,000 cycle lifetimes are
not uncommon. This is MUCH better than trim pots. Most trim pots are
actually rated for only 200 to 500 cycles!! There are pots that are made for
almost continuous duty as position feedback in motion control systems, but
these are much more expensive than you'd want to pay for a panel pot (and
they are usually big, linear things).
 Tim (letting an LFO do the work) Servo
--
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
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