New Alpha 16mm pot at Small Bear

[armdnrdy]

I just sent Steve an email about the new Alpha pot that Small Bear is stocking.

Rather than write up another description of the usefulness of this pot's design, I decided to paste the email to Steve. I believe that it covers everything.

Hi Steve,

This morning I looked on the SB site to see if the Alpha RV16AF-41-15R1-A500K was back in stock when I spotted the new style Alpha right angle pots.

I have seen this style pot used by MXR and A/DA but have not found a source for the line other than a few values.

In the product description you stated, "The pins drop directly down from the body with no 2mm extension."

On the RV16AF-41-15R1 I measured an extension of approximately 4mm.

The savings of 4mm X five pots across an enclosure would equate to about 3/4". As you know...3/4" in a stompbox build might as well be a mile!

I design my own boards 95% of the time and have encountered limitations with the pot pin extension.

I have made "custom right angle pots using 16mm vertical pots, perf board, and right angle header pins to achieve closer pot placement.

The new right angle pot would allow tighter builds.

If you stock the whole line of values...I will use this model exclusively over the RV16AF-41-15R1.

I'll write up a post for DIYStompboxes to alert the community of their inclusion to your product list.


http://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/alpha-single-gang-16mm-pc-mount-6-mm-shaft/

[smallbearelec]

Larry--

Thank you for the encouragement. We will be placing an order to Alpha for winter in early November, figure delivery early February. I can't promise to add the entire line immediately because of present limits on $$ and physical space. The latter is actually a more difficult issue; have you seen the news stories about insane New York City real estate prices? They usually refer to apartments being bought by billionaires from countries with dodgy banking systems, but the problem affects commercial real estate as well. I have a few years more on my lease, fortunately, but I really need more space than I have and want to stay in this area. I'll work it out, I hope.

In any case, I will add a few more values/tapers, at least.

Regards
SD

[armdnrdy]

Hey Steve,

I know all about high real estate prices. I live in Southern California! Enough said! 

The values that you currently stock are useful/common in many builds.

The inclusion of a few more reverse audio values for speed/rate controls would be good.
C10K, C50K, C100K, C500K

[darron]

i'd love to see the small bear shop front

[smallbearelec]

i'd love to see the small bear shop front

There is actually little to see. We are Not in one of the fashionable, residential areas of Brooklyn. Sunset Park has a large industrial area full of former factory buildings that have been re-purposed as warehouses, small artist's spaces and light manufacturing spaces. We are strictly a warehouse and deliberately don't have a storefront. The (relatively) low-rent operation helps us compete with shops whose expenses are much lower.

[PRR]

> Sunset Park

Your web-store says you work with Park Slope Copy Center, which is some miles over from Sunset Park.

Park Slope is (now) a very hoity-toity neighborhood, as seen in the snap below.

With that proviso (this is just Bear's mail-drop, not his working cave), here is what I found:

> i'd love to see the small bear shop front

Don't come all the way from Australia to see it.

Here is a Google StreetView snap of the Copy Center building.



This is an old "brownstone", which in the late 1800s were high-class residences. (This particular one is not brown, but still stone cladding.) Over the century they fell from high-class homes to low-class rentals, and then many turned into dense commercial spaces. The one house now sports a copy-shop and a real-estate agent, with another RE agent next door, and a mega-bank across the street.

You know what a copy-shop looks like, though this one may be more cramped than most. Apparently you won't find the Bear here, unless he's dashing in/out to get his mail.

He apparently *works* in Sunset Park, which is hardly a bad neighborhood, but distinctly lower-class (and lower-rent) than this Park Slope commercial address. Old mills and factories, apartment clumps suitable for factory workers, all re-purposed many times over the decades.

His "suite number" suggests a huge building cut-up into many small spaces.

Just to stir you up... you can *buy* 6,000 square feet of light industrial space (on an acre) up here for $109,000. Think of $17/sf for the rent, then free forever. (Property taxes are lighter than you can imagine.) Quiet road but the UPS truck goes thru every day. May not have heat, but lights are good. (Act fast.... for that price, I might buy it and fix it to live in. Plowtruck, backhoe, cars, woodshop downstairs, gobs of living space upstairs.)

[bloxstompboxes]

That would be perfect for my woodshop, PRR!. Wish it were down here in KY.

[PRR]

> Wish it were down here in KY.

There's property like that in Kentucky. Not within commuting distance of a city. And certainly not near Brooklyn where Small Bear is based.

[smallbearelec]

Park Slope is (now) a very hoity-toity neighborhood...

It's affluent, but low-key. Conspicuous display of wealth--like in some areas of Manhattan--would be considered "politically incorrect". My wife and I both lived here separately many years ago, before we knew each other, and before the influx of too many other two-income professional couples drove real estate prices from merely expensive to ridiculous. We bought after we married in '95 when it was still possible to do so without taking on the National Debt.  Were we fishing for a residential Cave now, we could not afford one.

The one house now sports a copy-shop and a real-estate agent, with another RE agent next door, and a mega-bank across the street.

The banks, chain stores and brokerages offer insane amounts of money in rent to local property-owners, to the point where locally-owned businesses can't compete. It's become a curse. The local businesses that survive are the ones that had the foresight and the fortitude to buy their buildings back in the '70s when the City was broke.

...Sunset Park, which is hardly a bad neighborhood

It had become an awful neighborhood when the industry moved out in the '70s. But some real estate investors saw possibilities even as early as the '80s and began buying buildings. The residential areas are now heavily Latino, and the old factory buildings are humming with tech startups and other enterprises.

Just to stir you up... you can *buy* 6,000 square feet of light industrial space (on an acre) up here for $109,000. Think

Yeah, but ME is even colder than Brooklyn! It is true that I might have done some things differently, knowing what I know now. But it has worked out well-enough. We have talked about heading for warmer climes but, for many reasons, "The Slope" is hard not to like.

[Mark Hammer]

The 7th Ave pic is where Steve picks up the mail.  The actual store is rather unassuming in a rather old building that is a catacomb of little businesses renting their little share of the larger building.  If one happens to be a person who is familiar with the inventory, it is impressive to see all those racks of knobs, and a delight to see staff assembling and packing the orders.  If you didn't know what all that stuff was, though, believe me you wouldn't be impressed.

When you see how many New Yorkers and Brooklynites decline to own cars, and how many pieces of even minor  sub-standard real estate are dripping with iron-work (around the trees, barring the basement and first-floor windows, providing bannisters, etc.), it is truly puzzling to see how much of Brooklyn is devoted to auto-body shops, and how little seems to be devoted to wrought-iron shops.  All I can assume is that the auto-body shops are merely fronts for illegal iron-workers, busily pounding on anvils in the back where authorities can't see them.

Steve and Judy are in a nice, but modest, apartment.  Because of the "slope" leading up to the park, though, they have a terrific view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.  The neighbourhood looks like every Woody Allen movie you've ever seen, but I can vouch that most of those folks are heading off to the subway every morning to go to work.  I was hoping to run into someone famous, but it consisted of walking behind actor John Turturro one morning as I tried to figure out if it was really him.  I think I creeped him out because he ducked into an ATM without using it, and emerged a few seconds later after I had passed.

But a great neighbourhood with an equally great library and park in the middle of it.

[chuckd666]

All I can assume is that the auto-body shops are merely fronts for illegal iron-workers, busily pounding on anvils in the back where authorities can't see them.

I'm sick of these illegal wrought iron workers and blacksmiths stealing our jobs.

[Mark Hammer]

Yeah, they oughta go back to the spreading chestnut tree where they came from...and take their leather aprons with them!

[tubegeek]

When you see how many New Yorkers and Brooklynites decline to own cars, and how many pieces of even minor  sub-standard real estate are dripping with iron-work (around the trees, barring the basement and first-floor windows, providing bannisters, etc.), it is truly puzzling to see how much of Brooklyn is devoted to auto-body shops, and how little seems to be devoted to wrought-iron shops.  All I can assume is that the auto-body shops are merely fronts for illegal iron-workers, busily pounding on anvils in the back where authorities can't see them.

Well, my 1890's homestead has probably had repairs/mods done on the ironwork at least twice since it was installed, maybe three times. (This work was insignificantly minor.) So maybe that helps explain it.

I have a missing part on my front stair railing (a 4" x 1" or so medallion) and a couple of small knobs missing from the front gate. I'm planning on casting a medallion out of resin from another one that came loose, and also molding a replacement for the gate part from a neighbor's original. I've been planning on doing those repairs since we moved in, in 1997.

The pace of ironwork is slow.

Also on the topic of Brooklyn - both the new movies "Brooklyn" and "Bridge Of Spies" feature wonderful 1950's Brooklyn atmosphere, and I recommend them both for that reason and also overall quality. This despite the fact that I thought the cement work that replaced the iron railings in one of the buildings used in "Brooklyn" looked more recent than the period.

I guess it's too late to say "don't get me started."

[armdnrdy]

For anyone interested...

Steve brought in more values of this Alpha Pot.

http://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/alpha-single-gang-16mm-pc-mount-6-mm-shaft/

[darron]

i'd like to add... i would always hands-down recommend people go to small bear for quality parts. the price is right and you know that you'll not going to get screwed buying junk like other places. i've spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years with steve and they always come through.