[sdiy] Slide pot cleaning

[Richie Burnett]

Yeah, I suppose I'm just paying the price for a lack of maintenance over the 
last decade!  Cleaning the SH-09 keybed contacts is next on my list...  Then 
changing the batteries in my JX-3P and Alpha Juno before they leak 
everywhere (>.<)

-Richie,



-----Original Message----- 
From: Adam (synthDIY)
Sent: Friday, May 8, 2026 11:06 AM
To: Richie Burnett
Cc: synth-diy mailing list
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Slide pot cleaning

Dontcha just love vintage synths??!!!

They tell me it's the same for vintage cars, vintage motorbikes, vintage 
boats...

A

> On 8 May 2026, at 19:38, Richie Burnett <rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk> 
> wrote:
>
> Thanks for all the tips guys.  I equipped myself with IPA, DeoxIT F5, 
> cotton buds, acid-free silicon grease and a solder sucker and spent the 
> best part of two days de-soldering, opening, cleaning, re-greasing and 
> re-soldering all of the slide pots on my SH-09.  It wasn't much fun, and 
> was a lot more time-consuming than I had imagined!  On the plus side all 
> of the slide pots now work perfectly with no crackling or jumping.
>
> I also bought some "2mm adhesive craft foam sheet" from UK Hobbycraft and 
> cut slits in this to make new dust covers for the groups of sliders.  This 
> seemed preferable to felt that might shed lint into the sliders over time. 
> I guess there's a chance that this new foam dust-guard might eventually 
> dry up and disintegrate into tiny brittle pieces like the old one did, but 
> if I can get another 40 years out of it that will see me out! :-)
>
> I'm particularly grateful for Adam's warning that the resonance slide pot 
> is fitted upside down relative to all of the other pots on the control 
> panel! This would have caught me out for sure had I not been pre-warned 
> and marked the end of each slider that was closest to the keys before 
> removing them one by one.  My only tip to anyone contemplating doing 
> similar to clean out sliders on their own vintage synth would be to 
> exercise caution when using the pliers to fold back the little steel tabs 
> on the bottom of the potentiometer's case (shown in Adam's article):
>
> https://mezzoauto.blogspot.com/2017/05/roland-sh-09-slide-pot-rehab.html
>
> I got a bit over-confident after doing the first dozen pots, and then 
> managed to slightly pinch or somehow distort the shape of the rectangular 
> steel enclosure on one of the slide pots.  This made the slide action have 
> a lot more physical resistance at one point along it's travel.  Of course 
> I didn't notice until I'd soldered it back in, so had to remove it and 
> sort that out.  It's quite easy to bend the case and even the tiniest bit 
> alters the feel of the slider action.
>
> -Richie,
>
>
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