[cetoole]

I recently ordered 10 of these $2 audio taper pot assortments from The Electronics Goldmine, and the order came in over the weekend. Each assortment has 8 pots, most of them pretty cheap, but there were a couple in each that look decent, some screwdriver adjust Alps RK09 dual unswitched pots, some Alphas, and these:

Every assortment I received had one of the pictured Nobel pots included, 10k dual audio taper, which a nice metal body, and 1/4" D-shaft. I think I should be set for audio pots for a little while, especially since I ordered 3 of those Alps pots from JBL that are reported to be 50k RK40 Black Beauties, for $10 shipped, each.

 

[dsavitsk]

These Noble pots are, IMO, much nicer than the Alps. They can sound a little on the dry side, but are not as tizzy on the top. Generally very smooth and natural, and only bettered by the PEC in their price range. Percy sells them for $20.

There are only two down sides ... one is that 10K is not always the most useful value -- though sometimes it is. The other is that you have to be careful soldering these pots. Too much heat and the plastic element will melt pulling out the pins and ruining the pots. too much heat in this case is a bit less than with any other pot I've used. But, you have 10, so I wouldn't worry too much about doing damage. Very nice find.

 

[ericj]

Yeah, I have three of these Noble pots from goldmine.

If you clip off the loudness tap pins, they fit the same pin spacing and basic outline as the Alps blue - they just stick out a bit further on the front.

 

[Alfiax]

got a load of these from the goldmine today- very nice construction, and a great deal obviously. I'm wondering if these can be disassembled and recombined into 4-gang or greater?

I also dropped six dollars on the G9231 'super electronic surprise box'. Recommendation: everybody needs to try this at least once. It's like the crazy tinker uncle's garage coffee cans minus all the grime- a good size cardboard box absolutely packed with smaller electronic components, connectors, etc. and studded throughout with bigger stuff- for example, there were some nice polypropylene 400v caps in mine. Even if there's nothing directly useful, it's amazingly therapeutic to sort through it all- somehow it seemed to lock into some hidden OCD region in my brain

 

[dsavitsk]

EG has quickly become one of my favorite things. I picked up their film cap assortment which contains 8 aerovox polyprop caps. I got ranges from .33uF/600V to 20uF. With several sets I ended up with a couple of useful pairs for coupling (3uF, 4uF, 4.7uF, etc.) and my short term impression is that I like these sonically more than solen/axon/BC/panasonic, etc. In fact, the are indistinguishable to my ear from Kimber Kaps.

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfiax I also dropped six dollars on the G9231 'super electronic surprise box'. Recommendation: everybody needs to try this at least once.

I've bought two of these, and i have mixed feelings.

Undoubtedly, I've actually used more than $5 worth of the contents of each.

But . . . . some of it is a little out of hand.

Anybody need like 40 of those 3uf 350v Aerovox polypro film & foil caps? I ought to get out the LCR, cull out maybe 10 of them that match perfectly, and throw the rest on ebay.

How about 90 or so incandescent lamps in molded plastic housing w/ attached leads? A whole crapload of gold plated 3 lug screw terminals in black ABS panel mount housing? Hey, how about some surface mount mini-pci slots?

The first one i bought was literally dripping with little glass diodes with bent & clipped leads.

They were everywhere. In everything. They included a 92mm box fan that was inexplicably attached via 4" leads to a cigarette lighter plug. I pulled 30 tiny little diodes out of the motor on that fan.

But here's the punchline - about half of them are 5.1v zeners, and the other half are an unidentifiable house marking with a National logo - but from more than 3 inches away they look exactly the same. I have no idea what they are. They're not 5.1v zeners, for sure.

I will probably buy another the next time i order from goldmine. And probably, again, about 2/3rds of the mass of the box will be utterly useless, and there will probably still be about $15 worth of stuff i can actually use, so it'll still be a good deal.

Edit: oh, just a warning - don't anyone get too excited about the inexpensive 10k Piher log pots they sell. Total garbage.

 

[cetoole]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsavitsk EG has quickly become one of my favorite things. I picked up their film cap assortment which contains 8 aerovox polyprop caps. I got ranges from .33uF/600V to 20uF. With several sets I ended up with a couple of useful pairs for coupling (3uF, 4uF, 4.7uF, etc.) and my short term impression is that I like these sonically more than solen/axon/BC/panasonic, etc. In fact, the are indistinguishable to my ear from Kimber Kaps.

I got some of those caps too, no matching pairs unfortunatly. I will probably get a couple more when I next order there. I also picked up one of the lighted loupes, it is really quite excellent, and will be very useful in the future, makes looking at parts like the PCM2702 on a GUD easy, just looked for shorts, (there were none), and it was much easier than anything I have used before. The $3 compaq 24v 750mAH wallwarts are really bricks in disguise, but would be nice for use with a TREAD I think. Several rechargable Li-ions and a LiPoly are in my box of stuff too, and a number of other interesting items. I love these surplus stores, but I always buy a ton of things I dont need (80 audio pots, what was I thinking?).

 

[Excalibur]

Thanks CETOOLE for the information. I purchased a quantity of 10 and received 12 Noble pots like the ones shown above!!!!

 

[Alfiax]

Quote:

They were everywhere. In everything. They included a 92mm box fan that was inexplicably attached via 4" leads to a cigarette lighter plug. I pulled 30 tiny little diodes out of the motor on that fan.

heheheheheh surprise!

Yes, there was a lot of junk in the box; I can see myself using maybe 10% of the contents, and even that is kind of unrealistic. A saving grace of the useless stuff is that it's so often so ridiculously weird. However, I can see how the entertainment value would drop off with time- I see myself going for this again, but maybe not a third time. Still, it was -so- worth it this time.