Illuminated Pots

[peteoxenham]

Has anyone seen/know where to get pots that have acrylic knobs that will light up with an LED? I would assume the pot would have to have a hollow shaft or a built in LED.

Thanks

[smallbearelec]

Alpha makes a series of pots that can accept an LED to illuminate the shaft. Mouser carries them as the 313-1410F series. I don't carry them yet, partly because my commercial customers haven't yet requested them. I may buy a small run for next year and see if they move.

What I Don't have is a source for acrylic knobs like the ones I have seen on Xotic's EP Booster:

http://www.xotic.us/effects/images/EPbooster.jpg

None of the Taiwanese knob factories that I deal with has the tooling to clone this; I have asked. I will keep looking as I make time for it and try to put the combination together.

SD

[G. Hoffman]

Allparts has some clear UFO style knobs (the Les Paul Knobs).  I've also seen some clear dice knobs, which I think would look pretty cool lit up!


Gabriel

[dune2k]

You can make the pots yourself out of normal Alpha Pots.
German tutorial (w/ pics): http://forum.musikding.de/vb/showthread.php?t=27525&highlight=poti+beleuchtung
Translation:
-First you take the pot apart and remove the case/enclosure, pic 1.
-Then I drilled a 2mm hole through the whole pot shaft, pic 2, 2.1 and 2.2.
-Drill a 4.9mm (keeps the LED in place) hole through the pot's case/enclosure.
-Put pot+enclosure together, pic 4.
-Take a 5mm LED and sand the round top of & polish it, pic 5.
-Now you can jam the LED in the pot's enclosure, pic 6.
-Pic 7 shows the first test.

The next pictures show how to drill holes through aluminum knobs to use the LED as an marker. If anyone is interested I can translate that part too. It's easy though.

[darron]

you need to be a forum member to see those pics.....



interesting idea, i've seen it here and there.



i could probably make some acrylic knobs out of 10mm acrylic with my laser. then you could etch in the numbers underneath or what the knob does. where it is etched it glows with the colour of the led as it is frosted. the pain would be drilling for the grub screw i guess, unless you did the metric slit shaft sort.

[dune2k]

you need to be a forum member to see those pics.....

Woops. Gonna write & ask if it's OK when I upload the pictures somewhere else.

[deadastronaut]

interesting idea...i always fancied a glow under my knobs...cool.

ive seen tiny flat square leds that might be good.

[The Tone God]

I think for the trouble of modifying pots its not worth it. Whats happens you need to replace the pot ? Whats happens if you can't get that pot ? What happens when you screw the pot up doing the work which is fairly likely ? More work. I think the easier thing to do is to drill a hole near the pot like a locating tab, use a small LED like 3mm, and light whatever knob you want. I would think a knob with a skirt would work well like a Fender amp style knob.

i could probably make some acrylic knobs out of 10mm acrylic with my laser. then you could etch in the numbers underneath or what the knob does. where it is etched it glows with the colour of the led as it is frosted. the pain would be drilling for the grub screw i guess, unless you did the metric slit shaft sort.

When laser cutting such thick acrylic it will not be clean and straight. You will get barrelling or chamfering even with air assist. A lathe or a mill with a vertical lathe setup is a better tool for this.

Andrew

[deadastronaut]

no i wouldnt tamper with the pots...just have a flat led under em....

been trying to find the link i had for em..they were tiny too...

be nice to get the clear knobs though!...but not the speed guitar knobs...

[darron]

Don't diss the laser Andrew.... At 10mm it will come out pretty well straight if you focus about 1/3 into it. It doubles as perfectly polishing the edges as you go too (:

[deadastronaut]

the ones xotic uses are very nice...


edit just had a brainstorm...fibre optics!...waheyyy 1 superbright led fed to all pots...

or anywhere............hmmmmm...going to look for an old 80's fibre lamp ha ha...

[greaser_au]

Most applications I have seen with illuminated knobs/pointers (e.g. test equipment, and  most recently, my car's heater knobs & gauge dial pointers)  usually have a light-well under an opaque panel, &  the knobs  have a collet/boss (of smaller diameter than the knob) that extends through the panel into the well. Either the knob is clear & coated,  or it has a clear plastic 'light pipe' that carries the illumination from the well up to the dial pointer. The opaque panel also has the graduations/legends clear/coloured so they light up too.

david

[The Tone God]

Don't diss the laser Andrew.... At 10mm it will come out pretty well straight if you focus about 1/3 into it. It doubles as perfectly polishing the edges as you go too (:

I'm not "diss" the laser, far from it as love what a laser can do. I'm just aware of the limitations of the technology. I do have experience in cutting thick acrylic. We rough cut the name plates for the TubeUlent which are 12mm using a laser but the edges are nowhere near true so we still have to run the pieces through the mill to get the final shape.

Unless you have a 200w laser with air assist the laser is not the right tool for this job. A lathe or a mill with a lathe setup is a better tool.

Andrew

[peteoxenham]

Most applications I have seen with illuminated knobs/pointers (e.g. test equipment, and  most recently, my car's heater knobs & gauge dial pointers)  usually have a light-well under an opaque panel, &  the knobs  have a collet/boss (of smaller diameter than the knob) that extends through the panel into the well. Either the knob is clear & coated,  or it has a clear plastic 'light pipe' that carries the illumination from the well up to the dial pointer. The opaque panel also has the graduations/legends clear/coloured so they light up too.

david

Could you explain more or post a drawing of what you mean here? it sounds interesting, but i don't quite understand.

[MoltenVoltage]

Mouser has been selling them for at least a year, they are lots of fun, but impractical in anything that sits on the ground since the shafts are plastic.

The standard LED mounts under the center of the pot.

Great for table top or rack mount stuff though!

[DaviesKnobs]

Check out Davies Molding. They have two shot control knobs made out of nylon and polycarbonate, which will allow the LED to shine through the indicator and top of knob. The polycarbonate can be made in any color allowing you to use a white LED. Very cool!!

http://www.daviesmolding.com/Catalog/Categories/Knobs/Control.aspx

[Processaurus]

Some nice options there.

Mouser has been selling them for at least a year, they are lots of fun, but impractical in anything that sits on the ground since the shafts are plastic.

I'm wondering if it could work to have a clear/frosted bushing, like a pair of shoulder washers, that a metal shaft pot could tighten on. You'd drill a bigger hole, like 1/2". Then you clould put two or three little 3mm LED's around the pot, to shine up at the transparent bushing. Use the little 9mm Alpha pots.  You could 3d print them, the clear filament comes out frosty.

[Xentric2]

Clear guitar knobs can be found at xentricguitars.com or from them on ebay. They are custom made in any possible way you can think of...