Good Quality POTS!

[George]

Dear friends!

As a young pedal builder, most of the problems i encountered before and after completing a pedal build were related to pour quality building materials.  I learned from my mistakes and i started buying good quality hardware (switches, jacks, foot switches, enclosures etch)  but i dont know where to find good quality pots. One out of 5 pots (the ones i am using right now) will fail in some way immediately or after a while.

Are the small pcb mounted green pots most reliable than the ones i already have?
Where i should check to buy my new assortment of pots?

[EBK]

Your repeated experiences of failure of pots could be due to poor soldering technique.  Make sure you give the pot time to cool down between making each solder joint, and set the pot somewhere in the middle of its travel when soldering it.  And of course, don't take longer than necessary when soldering them. 

If you really really need good pots, buy Bourns or CTS.  But, generally speaking, Alpha are perfectly fine.

[George]

Your repeated experiences of failure of pots could be due to poor soldering technique.  Make sure you give the pot time to cool down between making each solder joint, and set the pot somewhere in the middle of its travel when soldering it.  And of course, don't take longer than necessary when soldering them. 

If you really really need good pots, buy Bourns or CTS.  But, generally speaking, Alpha are perfectly fine.

Thanks for your reply. I ll try to be as quick as possible when soldering pots, although I dont think i abuse them (maybe in the first couple builds when applying solder and handling the soldering gun was still something new to me) now i got a ''helping hand'' a pre-tinned cable and pot lug and  i try not to overheat things  .

It seems i have better luck with these pots a few times i used them. Does anyone have a better experience with this type of pots?