Fixing the Air-8 volume pot

I finally got tired of fiddling with the faulty volume pot on my Air-8. I initially disassemble the radio and cleaned the pot with no effect. I decided to disassemble the radio a second time and removed and disassembled the actual pot to see what was up. As it turns out the wiper on these variable resistors come loose inside and just roll around when you turn the pot. I ended up gluing the wiper back on the wiper assembly using industrial-grade adhesive. I the reassembled the pot and it now works great. If you decide to do this please remember that the pot isn't made to disassemble and I had to drill out the two small rivets that hold the entire unit together to fix it. This turned oot to be a very complex procedure--disassembling the entire radio and then the pot as well. I love this radio and didn't want to just throw it away. The part is VR-1 if you want to buy a new one and just install (which is a pain in itself). I'm as BSc EE and SMc EE so felt competitent to do this procedure. Hope that my experience helps others to keet this great radio going.

Reply