Will 9mm pots shorten the horizon of "vintage" effects?

[Mark Hammer]

I'll guess the two important features that affect the life of a pot are the mechanical construction and the life of the conductive element.

The conductive element seems to be the point of failure with old pots. I can't remember guitar pedal with a pot that failed. I do recall a volume pedal and wah that failed. I have a couple guitars with a bad volume pot.

You'd guess the reason for failure of the resistive element would be from friction. The only real difference between a small pot one a larger pot is the size of the resistive element. I'm going to go out on a limb a propose that the size of the element has little affect on the life.

Think about how the wear would be applied from the wiper. With a large pot you have a larger wiper. You'd still have the same amount of wear with each turn.

Ah, but take apart a half-decent 24mm pot from years gone by, and the wiper is a thing of beauty; as round and smooth as a baby's bottom.  Negligible opportunity to scrape anything.  Wipers on smaller pots are essentially like curved stiff moustaches.  They both "work", but for how long, and how redeemable do they make the pot? (i.e.,a schpritz of this or that and they're good as new) Will players in 2050 be able to find working examples of great pedals made THIS YEAR, the same way that we can find fully functional pedals from pre-1975?

[ElectricDruid]

plus when you have microcontrollers on board, i wouldn't be surprised if you get an issue with that before the hardware?

I don't agree about this at all. There's a ton of vintage synths in the world that show that microprocessors from the 1980s can still be working fine 40 years later. Sure, vintage synths can have a variety of problems, but microprocessor failure isn't a big one amongst them.

[Phend]

Remember to use surge suppressors or unplug when not in use.
Protect your microprocessors and other.

[PRR]

....microprocessors from the 1980s can still be working fine 40 years later. ....

Example from adjacent field. TECRON audio analyzer, which is custom filters managed by a CP/M computer (slightly cruder than a 5150 IBM PC), from 1983, in use in 1988, in storage since 1989.

Sorry--- forgot link.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/tecron-tef-10-tds-analyzer-its-still-alive.382188/

[garcho]

"Vintage" pedals were created in a completely different economic, professional, and cultural environment than now. Once upon a time, only "pro" musicians played anything electric at all. Well, pro, and wealthy hobbyists, the only ones who could afford and/or justify the prices paid. Vintage guitar pedals come out of (the end of) that era. We now live in an era where the overwhelming majority of people buying gear are NOT pro, at all, and they're the people gear is now manufactured for. Pedals don't need to be "road worthy", or last, they only need to be cool enough to be purchased. While not directly related to the longevity of 9mm pots, I think it's part of your answer, Mark. So, unless the actual attitudes toward gear are different in 2050, I imagine the longevity of 9mm pots is a moot point.

[blackieNYC]

Another factor is that pots and switches like to be used somewhat regularly, which can keep contacts cleaner.  I'm in a facility with a lot of audio gear that hasn't been touched in two years.

[garcho]

^ I've worked in the used studio gear world off and on for years, first thing with a new acquisition is to spend a beer's worth of time fiddling all the knobs and pressing all the buttons 

[Mark Hammer]

"Vintage" pedals were created in a completely different economic, professional, and cultural environment than now. Once upon a time, only "pro" musicians played anything electric at all. Well, pro, and wealthy hobbyists, the only ones who could afford and/or justify the prices paid. Vintage guitar pedals come out of (the end of) that era. We now live in an era where the overwhelming majority of people buying gear are NOT pro, at all, and they're the people gear is now manufactured for. Pedals don't need to be "road worthy", or last, they only need to be cool enough to be purchased. While not directly related to the longevity of 9mm pots, I think it's part of your answer, Mark. So, unless the actual attitudes toward gear are different in 2050, I imagine the longevity of 9mm pots is a moot point.

I'll meet you back here in 28 years, Gary, and we'll see who is right! 

[bartimaeus]

plus when you have microcontrollers on board, i wouldn't be surprised if you get an issue with that before the hardware?

I don't agree about this at all. There's a ton of vintage synths in the world that show that microprocessors from the 1980s can still be working fine 40 years later. Sure, vintage synths can have a variety of problems, but microprocessor failure isn't a big one amongst them.

very fair point. i guess i was thinking more of repair-ability. with analog, as long as you find a suitable chip or pot, you can swap one in. it can be harder to repair old digitial systems, because even if you find the chips it can be hard or impossible to find the code.

that's one reason i prefer solid-state amps to digital. if i break it with a bad power supply or something, at least there's a chance i can fix it.

[aron]

I have old pedals from the DIY beginning. They were stored in a container in the closet. Almost every single one is incredibly noisy and scratchy. Some of them are completely unusable. Bummer!

[Mark Hammer]

Ah, but you CAN clean those pots, can't you?  THAT'S the difference.

[aron]

I wrote about this before but LPS-1 used to work for me for pots you could lubricate. I know it's not supposed to be as good as Cramolin etc... but LPS has worked and I did a test against Cramolin etc.... and have no issues from using it for decades.

[pinkjimiphoton]

in my experience, 9mm pots can be opened and cleaned, if you're willing to jump thru some hoops and disassemble them.. get the back plate off, boom, BUT try and get 'em back together!!

have also found they don't tend to hold up to dc as well... i've had quite a few fail when adjusting voltages with them.
but to be fair, i've had 16mm ones fail more often... tho i use them more which would likely explain that.

i don't like using the pc mount pots for non pcb applications. i used to just stock them, and cut 'em down, but i found cutting the modern alphas tends to wreck them somehow. now i keep pcb mount and solder lug 16mm's around, and 9mm's if i need to save on space.

nothing's made like it used to be. and some of the stuff... like the tayda branded pots... seem to be real garbage. we tried them on a run of pedals, and had most of them come back with pot failures... again tho, these were all ones i had trimmed down.

i dunno... my big concern with 9mm's is often they plain don't have long enough collets to be useful...like, the tayda ones can barely make it thru the thickness of a 1590 unless ya ditch the washer.

ugh. thinking makes my bwain hurt today

[Mark Hammer]

You're right about the short collets, jimi.  A royal pain.

But now that I think of it, cast-aluminum boxes from different manufacturers can have different wall-thicknesses, right?  They may attempt to conform to standardized outside dimensions, but there's no "standard" I'm aware of that stipulates wall-thickness.

Of course, it is to the manufacturer's benefit to use the least aluminum/alloy they can, to reduce costs.  But quality-control costs money, too.

I wonder if there are sources/manufacturers whose cast aluminum boxes consistently present less of an issue to short-collet pots.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i buy almost all of mine in china off ali, i forget the vendor name, landtone or something, the boxes have been really good and consistant for 1590b's. ya gotta buy in bulk, and you gotta also play the waiting game cuz shipping expense appears to change at different times of the day, cycles of the moon, or maybe a bee farting while surfing in bolivia.

but the ones the guy i work with gets commercially are all about the same.

another thing i dislike about the 9mm's is they just plain melt really easily sometimes too. i'm with you, mark, i'd think they could be made a little more robustly. a few of them chip amps i've messed with pt2finger turned me on to that died it was the volume controls basically melting down on at least two of them, so a fair bit of dc must have been leaking thru. even a full size 24mm pot you can get issues, but usually it just crackles a little bit.

but i think the dies they stamp them enclosures out with make for a fairly consistant product. i know i annoy people when guitar snobbery is affoot and i say, yeah, all them guitars made by cnc's are remarkably dissimilar, so OF COURSE you should spend 6 grande for something you could concievably get of similar <or sometimes better> quality with the unknown guy's brand... lol

mojo schmojo, the tone is in the fingers... and any asshole with a cnc can make the same quality instruments as the big boys, who seem more and more to source their parts from the same places we do

[Ice-9]

Boss have used those 9mm pots for many many years now and the fact they are fully sealed means they are less likely to suffer dirt issues, on the other hand having a narrow track and wiper connection may have a negative effect on lifespan. Personally, I prefer them over the 16mm dust collector pots.

[Mark Hammer]

i buy almost all of mine in china off ali, i forget the vendor name, landtone or something, the boxes have been really good and consistant for 1590b's. ya gotta buy in bulk, and you gotta also play the waiting game cuz shipping expense appears to change at different times of the day, cycles of the moon, or maybe a bee farting while surfing in bolivia.

but the ones the guy i work with gets commercially are all about the same.

another thing i dislike about the 9mm's is they just plain melt really easily sometimes too. i'm with you, mark, i'd think they could be made a little more robustly. a few of them chip amps i've messed with pt2finger turned me on to that died it was the volume controls basically melting down on at least two of them, so a fair bit of dc must have been leaking thru. even a full size 24mm pot you can get issues, but usually it just crackles a little bit.

but i think the dies they stamp them enclosures out with make for a fairly consistant product. i know i annoy people when guitar snobbery is affoot and i say, yeah, all them guitars made by cnc's are remarkably dissimilar, so OF COURSE you should spend 6 grande for something you could concievably get of similar <or sometimes better> quality with the unknown guy's brand... lol

mojo schmojo, the tone is in the fingers... and any asshole with a cnc can make the same quality instruments as the big boys, who seem more and more to source their parts from the same places we do

Bee fart...You'll like this.

[AtomicRob]

TT Electronics 9mm P09x series are sealed, conductive plastic, rated at 100000 cycles, and feel silky smooth. I used those in a couple recent homebrew designs to save space. Would not hesitate to use again.

Compared to the commonly used Alpha 16mm RV16AF, which are not sealed, carbon, rated 15000 cycles, I'd think those P09x pots are going to last longer. (6.66x longer? maybe, unless something unrelated to rotation wears out first...)

[iainpunk]

they might be rated at those cycle numbers, but that only says that in a controlled environment, they work after that amount of turns, it says nothing about its resistance to a drunk singer stepping on parts of the pedal that should not be stepped on. (which is the #1 reason people brought pedals to me for repair, although in doesn't have to be a singer, it can be another band mate as well, and pots mounted to the board are way more destructive than pots mounted on wires.)

cheers

[Mark Hammer]

TT Electronics 9mm P09x series are sealed, conductive plastic, rated at 100000 cycles, and feel silky smooth. I used those in a couple recent homebrew designs to save space. Would not hesitate to use again.

Compared to the commonly used Alpha 16mm RV16AF, which are not sealed, carbon, rated 15000 cycles, I'd think those P09x pots are going to last longer. (6.66x longer? maybe, unless something unrelated to rotation wears out first...)

I have no doubt they will.  But what commercial pedals use them?  Certainly not the $40 Chinese ones.  Hmm, maybe some manufacturers ought to start marketing "future vintage" versions of their pedals.  That is, a pricier version of the very same pedal, that uses pots one can expect to last a LONG time.  So, a $189 version with the cheaper pots, that's good for 5-8 years, and a $229 version in the very same form-factor and layout that one can rely on for the next 20-30.  If Boss can turn out pricier "Waza" pedals, and Ibanez can turn out handwired Tube Screamers, why not have dual-pricepoint pedals, kind of like Squier vs American Standard Strats?