Tayda Alpha PCB Pots

[Drey]

Hi everyone,

quick question how are those green alpha pcb pots with plastic shafts ? Are they worth it ? Or is the resistance while turning the pot very poor and feels cheap ? How do they compare to the metal shaft pcb pots that cost twice as much ?

[vid.sicious]

Don't have an answer to your question but I'm also interested. I noticed Mammoth Electronics sell same pots but transparent with a slot for LEDs underneath (would make cool illuminating knobs!). They're fully plastic so I wonder what's their durability...

[cylens]

I don't have the answer, but notice that the "plastic ones" don't have a thread for nuts, they're supposed to be soldered on a pcb and just "pop up" through a hole. no way to fix them on an enclosure

[rocket88]

Just saw this post. The plastic ones are like what you see on the wayhuge swollen pickle for the extra controls besides volume, tone, and sustain. You see them a lot on the 1590a corporate builds where then use them so they don't need knobs. As to wether they're good or not, I'd say they're fine. But as cylens pointed out, they're are ment to stick through a hole in the enclosure and are not secured with a nut. So you can use them if you mount them to a piece of vero, and have a way to hold them inplace from inside then enclosure.

Personally I think it would be more hassle then it's worth.

[Beaker]

They might be useful for some builds where you want to replace an internal board mounted transistor/JFET bias pot, with an external bias pot. Other than that, I can't see much benefit in using them.

[negativefx]

I mistakenly ordered a few of them.  Have yet to find a purpose for them because I can't easily PCB mount them to vero and the few PCBs I have that I'd use need way different values.  I would actually consider using them if they didn't require PCB mount because not needing knobs on a 1590A or B build would be quite handy.  As far as their "feel", they're fine.  Don't feel cheap, gritty, or anything like that.