Tube Works 903 Blue Tube-who’s got the pot?

[Loose Neutral]

Hey folks. Been lurking for a spell. Very good reads on this forum and some great innovative thinking. Appreciated! Maybe you can help me out with this. I acquired this 903 Tube Works BT quite a while ago and it's been in various boxes laying around. This is the 5 knob version and all the pots are toast. Cleaning just liquified the crud. Mechanically they're wobble wobble. Thing is I'd like to resurrect this pedal and see it's potential. Pretty decent build really. Problem is I'm not finding the damn pots. 2 100's 2 500's and a 10. Odd ball size. Board & chassis mounted. 14mm diameter 4mm thread shaft 21mm front to back. Hoping I'd find it with Mouser as there's their PS in it. Unless I'm just that dense...entirely possible but I've had no luck. Any help is much appreciated.

[ElectricDruid]

I think you're just measuring the wrong dimensions, which is why you can't find anything that matches the pots you've got in front of you. Those look like pretty standard 16mm pots to me, with a short splined shaft - the shaft length is usually measured from the top of the threaded section, so I'm guessing those are 10mm.

interestingly, they've used *vertical* mounting PCB pots for a *horizontal* mounting, by soldering them in and then bending them over (or vice versa: bend then solder). I use lots of those PCB mounting pots, and usually they stand up the other way, like these ones (these have the smooth shaft, rather than the splined, but are otherwise the same):



Not quite sure why you'd use those over horizontal mounting pots, but perhaps it would make sense if it meant you could keep only one part in your inventory and buy thousands and hit a price break instead of buying two different pots and not hit the break.

They're not unusual pots by any means so you should be able to find them several places for reasonable money.

HTH,
Tom

[Loose Neutral]

Actually Tom, I think I'll learn to read a calipers correctly before I open my mouth again and Thankyou for your reply.

[PRR]

Welcome.

> 2 100's 2 500's and a 10.

100 Ohm pots are unlikely, 10 Ohm is beyond belief. Maybe 100k 500k and 10k??

And of course the physical size hardly matters. Get same or smaller, run wires from pot to PCB, let the box support the pots.

But I have never seen a pot shaft bushing worn to "wobble wobble". Even in studio gear with a million diddles. I have seen cheap pots with much clearance in the bushing, packed with grease for "smooth feel" (for a while). 

[willienillie]

Viewing the pic full-size, I can see Ks on all three.

[amptramp]

I thought this thread might have been about a stompbox using blue Arcturus tubes:



The main market for Arcturus tubes was the conversion of battery sets to AC use, eliminating the filament A battery but the B and C batteries (for B+ and grid bias respectively) were still there.  The market disappeared with the emergence of sets running entirely on AC.

Some of their tubes had side filament screw connectors but most had the cathode connected to one side of the filament so no new connections has to be made.

[rutabaga bob]

Love those Arcturus boxes!