Bourns potentiometers?

[croquet hoop]

I noticed that Mouser sells Bourns 9mm pots (search for 652-PTD90) for a rather decent price ($1.7). Has anyone tried them? I am wondering if I should give them a chance, or just place another order at Tayda just for pots and forget about them.

http://fr.mouser.com/Passive-Components/Potentiometers-Trimmers-Rheostats/Potentiometers/_/N-9q0ypZscv7?P=1yzshlv&Keyword=652-PTD90&Ns=Resistance|0&FS=True

[raulduke]

Bourns stuff in general is high quality.

Also, they are a British, family run, business. They are a decent company.

[midwayfair]

I've got some. They've got short knurled shafts. The quality of the pot itself seems to be comparable with Alpha if not slightly more rugged. They're very good for certain small/short knobs, but considering how often I need to position a pot slightly off in a 1590A, I'm not sure they're good for universal use.

The other issue is that they don't have the widest range of values or tapers -- much, much smaller selection than the Alphas from Smallbear, which he carries in almost every value and taper you can get. The Bourns do have a pretty decent selection of multi-gang values, though.

[RobA]

I've used various of the Bourns pots. I find them to be much better than the Alpha pots. I've used their guitar pots (PDB183 and PDB182 series) several times and they are nice pots. I used their PTL slide pots in my Godin and they were perfect and available in lots of lengths with various shaft sizes.

I've used the PTD and PTR series pots in audio projects that needed good multi-ganged and switched pots. They are really nice and I think they track better than the Alpha multi-ganged pots I've tried and their audio curves are more reasonable.

The downside is that they come in a bunch of different shaft lengths, gangs, values, detents, ..., so you have to pay attention to the part number carefully at Mouser and match it to the spec sheet to make sure you are getting the ones you want. Not all the shaft lengths match up with those from Alpha pots, so the knobs might not look right together. The shaft lengths on the double ganged switched guys I could get at Mouser don't work with most of the common pedal knobs. The shafts are too long and the knobs won't fit far enough over them to cover the bottom of the shaft well enough.

[croquet hoop]

Thanks for the input guys. I've managed to understand which part of the reference indicates what, so I think I have a grip on the shaft length/multi gang variations. I'll probably throw a bunch of them in my next order.

[pickdropper]

I've been meaning to yet some Bourns no load pots for my Les Paul.

They make nice quality stuff.