SV: Re: [sdiy] ALPS components durability?

[karl dalen]

--- Tim Parkhurst <tim.parkhurst at gmail.com> skrev:

> 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.

Not so, i have a unit who has a LCD panel whos sourrunded by a
couple of pots, i have worn out these several times and they
are speced at 20 000 cycles!

So this is not uncommon at all.

Forinstance im much more used to simple carbon pots to have
cycles about 10 000 20 000 as a standard speced for "consumer" 
grade, for instance Radihoms 16mm units. And these are really 
rock bottom priced! much cheaper then ALPS RK09 units.

Reg
KD 


 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
>