K3 Knobs

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K3 Knobs

rfenabled
For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to the radio to cause destruction of the original knobs.

I would not want to be the second owner of those radios as I shudder to think what the rest of the radio has been subjected to.

Just my initial thought.

My K3 is well over one year old and exhibits no wear and tear, it has been transported often, used in the field as well as numerous operators and still looks and works just like it did on day one.

Gary
Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra
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Re: K3 Knobs

Andreas Junge
No abuse to the radio at all. The material appears to be too brittle.  
Slightly torque  the set screw and the knob will split. Eric already  
said the composition has been changed to fix this, so there was a  
problem.

Andreas, N6NU




On May 17, 2009, at 8:25 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

> For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to the radio  
> to cause destruction of the original knobs.
>
> I would not want to be the second owner of those radios as I shudder  
> to think what the rest of the radio has been subjected to.
>
> Just my initial thought.
>
> My K3 is well over one year old and exhibits no wear and tear, it  
> has been transported often, used in the field as well as numerous  
> operators and still looks and works just like it did on day one.
>
> Gary
> Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

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Re: K3 Knobs

Phil NA4M
In reply to this post by rfenabled
[hidden email] wrote:
> For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to the radio to cause destruction of the original knobs.
No abuse needed and not likely.

I recently assembled K3/100 #2871 and also had to replace some of the AF
and RF gain knobs.

The knobs in the bad batch will crack/split with just a slight
tightening of their set screws.  Thats what I encountered.  I've
installed many equipment knobs over the years and was careful to not
over tighten the sets screws per Elecraft's instructions.  
Never-the-less the old ones cracked.  Elecraft replaced them and so far
all is well.

73 Phil NA4M

--
-. .- ....- --   -. .- ....- -- -. .- ....- --
Phil Duff NA4M & Ann Duff
Georgetown, Texas
http://priceless.apduff.com
http://stockphoto.apduff.com

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Re: K3 Knobs

G4POP
Yes I have had the same problem twice now it seems there was a bad batch

Now if some kind after market manufacturer produced a set of nicely machined and anodised alloy knobs I would be first in in line to order them

Terry

Phil Duff & Ann Duff wrote
rfenabled@gmail.com wrote:
> For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to the radio to cause destruction of the original knobs.
No abuse needed and not likely.

I recently assembled K3/100 #2871 and also had to replace some of the AF
and RF gain knobs.

The knobs in the bad batch will crack/split with just a slight
tightening of their set screws.  Thats what I encountered.  I've
installed many equipment knobs over the years and was careful to not
over tighten the sets screws per Elecraft's instructions.  
Never-the-less the old ones cracked.  Elecraft replaced them and so far
all is well.

73 Phil NA4M

--
-. .- ....- --   -. .- ....- -- -. .- ....- --
Phil Duff NA4M & Ann Duff
Georgetown, Texas
http://priceless.apduff.com
http://stockphoto.apduff.com

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Re: K3 Knobs

Stephen  Prior
In reply to this post by Phil NA4M
On 17/05/2009 17:18, "Phil Duff & Ann Duff" <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> [hidden email] wrote:
>> For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to the radio to cause
>> destruction of the original knobs.
> No abuse needed and not likely.
>
> I recently assembled K3/100 #2871 and also had to replace some of the AF
> and RF gain knobs.
>
> The knobs in the bad batch will crack/split with just a slight
> tightening of their set screws.  Thats what I encountered.  I've
> installed many equipment knobs over the years and was careful to not
> over tighten the sets screws per Elecraft's instructions.
> Never-the-less the old ones cracked.  Elecraft replaced them and so far
> all is well.
>
> 73 Phil NA4M

You are absolutely right Phil.  I'm not 'ham-fisted' by any means, but both
of the knobs on my K3 (#980) spilt a few months back.  Elecraft sent me a
couple of replacements and I was _even_ more cautious in tightening them up.
One of them started to split within a couple of weeks and I immediately
opened up the splits and filled with epoxy and so far all is still okay, and
you can't see where I glued it.  The other one, tightened to the same degree
of torque is still in one piece.

I note that there is no metal ferrule in these knobs.  Just about every
other knob I have ever fitted has had a (usually) brass ferrule which
happily copes with the stress of a fastening.  I had rather hoped that the
replacement ones supplied to me would have had a metal ferrule too, but they
did not.

73 Stephen G4SJP

 



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Re: K3 Knobs

K2QI
In reply to this post by rfenabled
The first time I assembled my K3, I took care not to over tighten the
concentric knobs.  However, I had to take them off several times as I had to
troubleshoot a problem I thought I might have been having with the DSP
board.  The last time I reassembled the front panel, in haste and tiredness,
I cranked down the grub screws enough to indent the potentiometer shafts.
As a result, both sets of concentric knobs split in half.  

I called Elecraft the following day and ordered two replacement sets.  I
have since taken care to make sure that the grub screws are only tight
enough to prevent the knob from slipping on its shaft.  One thing I've
noticed though is that the holes drilled in all sets of knobs I received
weren't exactly centered; making alignment and prevention of binding between
knobs a difficult task.  In the end, I had to mix and match knobs until I
found pairs that worked well together without binding.

In the end, the knobs (especially the concentric knobs) are the K3's
cheapest feeling items.  They are poorly manufactured with spotty QC.  I
would rather pay a little extra to have quality machined knobs, or at least
resin knobs with metal ferrules in them.  Of course, whatever Elecraft comes
up with in future, I hope they check to make sure that the holes in the
knobs are perfectly centered.

73 de James K3JPS/2

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 11:25 AM
To: Elecraft
Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Knobs

For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to the radio to cause
destruction of the original knobs.

I would not want to be the second owner of those radios as I shudder to
think what the rest of the radio has been subjected to.

Just my initial thought.

My K3 is well over one year old and exhibits no wear and tear, it has been
transported often, used in the field as well as numerous operators and still
looks and works just like it did on day one.

Gary
Sent via BlackBerryR from Telstra
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Re: K3 Knobs

w7aqk
In reply to this post by rfenabled
Gary,

It's pretty simple!  Just applying a bit too much tension
when tightening the screws will crack the knobs.  It's
happened to a lot of folks, including me.  Actually, it
didn't seem like it took that much pressure either, so folks
need to go easy when attaching the knobs.  I don't really
remember ever breaking a knob like that, so it surprised me
when it happened.  If it didn't happen to you, you are
either lucky, or perhaps a tad more restrained about how
tight you mount your knobs.  In the past I've often found
that knobs that weren't attached fairly tight soon started
slipping a bit eventually.  Anyway, Elecraft has issued many
cautionary statements about not over-tightening the knobs,
so it's pretty obvious that it isn't an isolated problem.

Dave W7AQK


----- Original Message -----
From: <[hidden email]>
To: "Elecraft" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 8:25 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Knobs


For the life of me I cannot imagine what is being done to
the radio to cause destruction of the original knobs.

I would not want to be the second owner of those radios as I
shudder to think what the rest of the radio has been
subjected to.

Just my initial thought.

My K3 is well over one year old and exhibits no wear and
tear, it has been transported often, used in the field as
well as numerous operators and still looks and works just
like it did on day one.

Gary
Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

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Please help support this email list:
http://www.qsl.net/donate.html


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Re: K3 Knobs

David Pratt
In a recent message, David Yarnes <[hidden email]> wrote ...
>
>It's pretty simple!  Just applying a bit too much tension
>when tightening the screws will crack the knobs.

The answer for future K3s would appear to be to have flats on the RF and
AF controls so that push-on knobs can be used rather than requiring a
set screw.

73
--
David G4DMP
Leeds, England, UK
------


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