Wah pinion for solid shaft

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Anyone know where I can find a Wah pinion for a solid shaft pot?

All I can find are flatted and knurled shaft pinions 

[midwayfair]

E-mail Joe Gagan. I think if anyone would have it, he would. However, I would be surprised if something like this exists.

Think about what you're asking for. You need a mechanism that can reliably actuate a pot where there's naturally very little friction. This means you need some way to create a very strong connection between the pot and whatever's turning it. This leaves you with a couple options:

1) Ernie Ball gets around the problem by having a large potentiometer shaft and a spring mechanism. The string can be nylon so it does last a while, but it's still a piece of fabric, so it's going to break in years while plastic can last decades. The pot shaft has to be large because you need to wrap the string around the shaft several times to prevent it from slipping and to ensure that the spring is tight. You also need a place to mount the spring reliably, and a spring with pretty precise tension.

2) You could try to rig something up with a rubber band, which would have more friction than the string and wouldn't require as large a pot shaft. However, rubber degrades just from exposure to air much quicker than a nylon string, and will absolutely lose tension and fray easier. You might get a few months out of it, but it's probably cheaper than using the spring.

You'd probably be better off changing it out for a knurled or flatted pot and using the pinions you can buy off the shelf anywhere.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

You'd probably be better off changing it out for a knurled or flatted pot and using the pinions you can buy off the shelf anywhere.

Problem with that is then it becomes a custom order (not ordinary stock) and you end up either buying in bulk ($$$) or buying one or two pieces for $20-25 each!

I have some VERY good sealed pots but, they have solid shafts. Maybe I can get a flatted or knurled pinion and "modify" them to work. 

[flanagan0718]

sent you a PM

[davent]

Adapt the pot shaft to the pinion?
dave

[chordball]

Adapt the pot shaft to the pinion?
dave

Yes. Dremel is your friend.

I think Joe did glue his gears on for a while when he was trying to find gears with a different number of teeth.

[lars]

I would try to find whatever gear it was they used on the Maestro Boomerangs. Those appeared to have set screws to lock them onto a standard solid shaft pot.
Perhaps Tamiya makes something that would work. I know they make all kinds of pinion gears for their RC cars, and most of these are for solid shafts. They use a small allen set screw to lock in.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Got some flatted shaft pinions on the way. Found some old info from Joe Gagan that shows how to make 'em work on a solid metal shaft pot