[sdiy] cleaning pots of a Polivoks

[ニコラス・ケント]

I recall Vladamir Kuzmin saying that you should be able to get rid of  
some scratchiness by pulling up on the knob a bit and giving it a bit  
of a workout.

That said it didn't go very far on the worst pots.

Fortunately it's not very hard to get at the pots. First off the  
Polivoks opens slightly different from how you might guess. You need  
to take off all 4 rubber feet and then only the center two screws  
along the front metal rim. There are more screws on the rim but they  
aren't holding it closed. Then there are two metal tabs holding the  
back. So you sort of lift the front with the keys up first ahead of  
the back holding the whole top by the hand holds on the sides and  
you'll see what's going on with the round little tabs holding the top  
to the back.

The circuit boards snap out and the pots are easy open by bending the  
tabs.

Okay now once inside the pots, since they are 20+ years old and  
Soviet I have no idea myself what cleaners if any are safe. What I  
did was open them (quite easy with a screwdriver) and just take a dry  
clean q-tip and wipe them. I found I could get them quiet though some  
months later I can hear scratching again. Fortunately as mentioned  
it's not a big deal to get inside them, the pot's back cover comes on  
and off easily and the circuit boards snap out to get at the pots.

  Here are some shots of the inside and installing a CV mod
http://www.technopop.info/polyvox/
Doesn't really illustrate any pot issues but I don't recall anyone  
posting photos of the insides of one.


On May 26, 2006, at 4:59 PM, Antti Pitkämäki wrote:

> Hello synth-gurus,
>
> I've finally decided that I must fix my Russian synth Polivoks. I  
> guess the smartest thing to do is to start with the most annoying  
> but also simplest problem, which is really noisy/dusty pots.  
> Tweaking those pots really drives me crazy because instead of  
> hearing the beautiful sound of the Polivoks I hear all that noise  
> and crackle from the pots. I've never cleaned a single pot. Oh  
> wait, I cleaned that pot my girlfriend used for cooking which kinda  
> burnt, but I haven't cleaned any potentiometers. I remember that a  
> tech who worked on the Polivoks said that the pots were sealed and  
> it was difficult to get any cleaning stuff inside them. So what to  
> do? What stuff to use? Is it a good idea to try to open the pots  
> somehow or is this usually even possible? Or would it be a good  
> idea to replace the pots if cleaning them would seem a lot of work?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Antti Pitkämäki
>
> PS: sorry, I just had to make that lame kitchen-pot joke before  
> somebody else would have done so!
>
>