Zenith Avanti G2 pot

[DaveWM]

I was noticing my blue screen going wacky lately (25DC56), found a replacement pot (5 meg plastic mount and shaft, even the right color shaft), so popped it in, nice again. I checked the pot, it has a open in the element. Those are getting hard to find so I think I will keep the pot and see if I can locate a donor 5 meg element to replace it. Glad to get my Avanti working again. So easy to fix to with the service saver. hardest part was getting the stand on and off.

[DaveWM]

disassembled the pot, I can locate the break with a vtvm prob but can not see it even with my 5x eye piece. Normally you can see the break but this one must be TINY. anyway the pot came apart pretty easy. Would be a good candidate I think for a trial fix with some conductive paint, or of course a better fix a donor pot element.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by DaveWM

disassembled the pot, I can locate the break with a vtvm prob but can not see it even with my 5x eye piece. Normally you can see the break but this one must be TINY. anyway the pot came apart pretty easy. Would be a good candidate I think for a trial fix with some conductive paint, or of course a better fix a donor pot element.

It isn't a break, but a deteriorated carbon deposit on the element.
I used to see that a lot, with any pot, that is associated with the boost source. It must be the high voltage drop in the pot.

[Zenith26kc20]

Strange but I was thinking about those pots last night. We saw those go bad sometimes more than one in a set at a time. I was wondering if a modern type would work but they have that plastic twist mount to prevent arcing to the chassis.
If I remember right one of the blue convergence controls failed regularly too!

[dieseljeep]

[QUOTE=Zenith26kc20;3063654]Strange but I was thinking about those pots last night. We saw those go bad sometimes more than one in a set at a time. I was wondering if a modern type would work but they have that plastic twist mount to prevent arcing to the chassis.
Milwaukee had a great Zenith distributor. I used to keep a few of those screen pots on hand. The only ones they seemed to stock, were the blue shafted ones. It didn't make any difference, as the value was the same.
I found more failures in the E,F and G series chassis.

[DaveWM]

well I found some pots that are 5 meg (alphas new at mouser) so next time I make an order I will get a few and see if I can conduct the transplant. I assume the voltage rating has more to do with the parts that I plan to keep rather than the donar element/solder lugs. I was able to get all three (rgb) colors, so hopefully I will nver have to actually use the donor pot.