Small Control Knobs and Short shaft pots

[EpicFail]

Hi,

Been trying to find small control knobs that are c.10mm base diameter and ideally, c.10mm total height. They seem to be really hard to find.

Finding pots that have a small enough shaft length and shaft / bushings diameter to fit in anything that size seem even harder to find! I also can't imagine that there would be much room for a skirt on the knob to allow for a nut to mount the enclosure, so any ideas on how to secure the pot would be great!

To add to the mix, I'd also like to mount the pot direct to the PCB (although not essential).

Does anyone have experience of using knobs/pots of that size on projects? And if so, where did you get the parts / who is the manufacturer? (I'm in UK).

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[R O Tiree]

About the smallest I've found at Farnell is 11mm dia and 14mm tall, with a 6mm hole for a T36 or D shaft.

The trouble is, as soon as you specify 10mm dia or less, then you're looking at 3.2mm shafts, and that then cuts down the options for your pots.

[davent]

Someone some years ago posted pictures of a build that used layers of heatshrink on the pot shafts to give them a small diameter pseudo knob,  looked quite good, much, much better then it sounds.

edit: Found the picture. Thread  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=64039.msg720920#msg720920

[EpicFail]

Yeah, 11mm base diameter is about as small as I've managed to find and they are normally without skirt which (I think) means you have to find a way of mounting the pot to the enclosure that doesn't involve an external nut and washer, although I may well be wrong about that.

I think I remember coming across one type of pot that had an integrated control knob for a shaft, so you didn't need a separate knob, but I may have made that up and I've no idea where I saw it! And again, no idea how that mounts to the enclosure..!

The hearshrink method is a nice creative solution although I think I'd be happier if I could find a suitable product.

Thanks guys.

[EpicFail]

Actually, just found the pot I was talking about with the integral knob - it's by Alps: http://www.alps.com/products/WebObjects/catalog.woa/E/HTML/Potentiometer/RotaryPotentiometers/RK09K/RK09K11100E9.html

Not sure I can work out from the datasheet how you securely mount it though. Any ideas?

Thanks

[R O Tiree]

Those are designed to be soldered into your PCB at right angles to it and then poke the shafts through holes in a vertical front plate (if the PCB is mounted horizontally) or a horizontal faceplate (if the PCB is mounted vertically inside).  They rely on the PCB being firmly held inside the case, for example by screws going into internal mouldings.  Not really what you're looking for, then.