[Elecraft] K3 Broken AF knob and bad service to get an replacement.

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft]

Hi Tord,

I personally apologize for your problems with the K3 concentric AF/RF 
knobs, or any delays from us sending them to you. We send out all 
replacements very quickly and I can only guess that they were delayed at 
international customs. I checked our records, and our sales department 
received your replacement request Thursday, June 18th, 2009. We shipped 
the replacements on Monday, June 22, 2009. We try to work hard to send 
all replacement parts quickly, as we know how important this is to our 
customers. (For the fastest replacement parts service, please send 
future parts emails to parts at elecraft.com )

In the case of the concentric Volume/RF gain  knobs, we solved this 
problem several months ago. It turns out that unknown to us, our knob 
vendor had used the wrong black pigment in a single production lot of 
those knobs earlier this year, which made the plastic become more 
brittle over several months. Some K3s would have the problem, and many 
others would be perfectly OK. We only discovered what was happening 
later into the year as more of these began to break and that is why the 
early replacements had the same problem. We thought we were sending out 
good ones when in fact they had the same problem. They would test OK 
here and then fatigue and crack in the field.

Once we found the problem, we required the knob manufacturer to take 
back all of the defective knobs and supply us with new ones. In 
addition, we also made the decision to change the formulation of the 
plastic to add glass fiber reinforcement for extra insurance. As a 
result the knobs that we currently ship are almost impossible to 
destroy. We actually tested them by over tightening the set screw 
severely, and the set screw stripped out before the plastic cracked :-) 
They are very strong.

New K3s have been shipping with these new stronger concentric knobs for 
some time.

These new knobs match the rest of the knobs on the K3, and we will 
replace any broken knob for free.

** When we now receive a report of a broken concentric knob for the AF 
volume/RF gain pots, we now send the customer a complete set of four new 
replacements (2 inner and 2 outer knobs.) We also now include the 
required hex wrench with the replacement knobs.

One other note - Gary is incorrect about the cost of these knobs. They 
are in fact custom designed by Wayne and manufactured to our 
specifications. They actually cost us more than off the shelf knobs. 
They are not cheap knobs. (But we are embarrassed by the mistake made by 
our knob supplier.)

Tord - We will send you four new concentric knobs and the Allen wrench 
immediately, and we will ship them to you via international priority 
mail. Please contact me directly if you have further concerns or 
questions, or of these knobs do not arrive in a reasonable amount of time.

73,
Eric  WA6HHQ

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