[Elecraft] AF/RF Knob situation - joined the club

[Eric Swartz -WA6HHQ, Elecraft]

Hi Julian,

I am just reading your emails now as I eat my Sunday morning breakfast. 
(Hopefully my wife won't notice I'm reading email at the breakfast 
table..) I was not able to read or respond to list postings most of 
yesterday (Saturday). Our Elecraft company holiday party was last night 
and I was busy with preparation for that and welcoming our out of town 
employees as they arrived, giving them a tour of our new headquarters. 
(Gary Surrency, Lyle Johnson and a number of others.)

I think you may have misunderstood my earlier posting to the list 
regarding the concentric AF/RF K3  knobs. I definitely was -not- saying 
that the only serial number range where concentric AF/RF knobs could 
crack was from the problem plastic batch earlier this year. That was 
just the trigger point that prompted us to change the plastic 
formulation. Its quite clear that some concentric knobs from earlier K3s 
have been broken. In many cases over-tightening of the set screws could 
cause breakage of knobs on earlier K3s. Most of the failures reported to 
us fell in that category, but there certainly could have been other 
failures. The number of knobs  failing inside the problematic plastic 
s/n range though were an order of magnitude higher than those outside 
that range.  The jump in knob failures earlier this year is what alerted 
us that there might be a manufacturing / supplier issue.

That's why, when we encountered the problem batch from the manufacturer 
earlier this year, we decided to go further than just requiring them to 
replace the bad ones with proper equivalents. As noted in my earlier 
list posting, we also changed the plastic formulation to add glass fiber 
to the mix, which makes the current knobs extremely rugged. We tested 
them by over tightening the set screws to an extreme, way more than is 
easily done by hand with the supplied Allen wrenches.. The set screws on 
the new formulation knobs always gave out first. :-)  We couldn't break 
them short of hitting them with as hammer.  These knobs are custom 
manufactured for us by EHC, a highly respected custom knob 
manufacturerr. That's why we were caught off-guard when they ended up 
having problems.

I also noted in my earlier posting that we will replace for -free- under 
warranty, indefinitely, all concentric K3 knobs that have problems. That 
applies to -any- s/n K3, not just the ones in the problem batch. When 
any customer contacts parts at elecraft.com and reports a breakage of any 
of these knobs, we will send out a complete set of four new concentric 
knobs, no questions asked.

If you are nervous about your concentric knobs, please feel free to 
email parts at elecraft.com and we will send you a new set gratis.

And of course, -all- new K3s have been shipping with the improved 
plastic formulation concentric knobs for a number of months. When I get 
to the office tomorrow, I'll post the approximate date and s/n range to 
the list and our K3 mods/alert page so there is no confusion.

73, Eric   WA6HHQ





Julian Moss wrote:
> Hi Don.
>
> I'm replying direct and copying this to Dave G4AON and to Eric because
> I sense that some members of the list are tired of this issue but I
> want Elecraft to see it.
>
> Your explanation does not make sense to me. Al WA6VNN's K3 has serial
> number 31. Dave G4AON's serial number I think is 80. Don K7FJ has now
> posted to say the problem is apparent with his K3 serial number 195.
> All those radios were made at the end of 2007. How do they come to
> have knobs from a faulty batch which was manufactured during early
> 2009 if I understood Wayne or Eric's original explanation of the issue
> correctly?
>
> I don't see a problem yet with my own K3 serial number 222 but that
> may be because it hasn't been as heavily used as some of the others.
> But I am afraid that if I needed to remove and replace a knob for any
> reason that might be enough to cause a fracture. In short, I no longer
> have confidence that the knobs on my K3 will not fail. I'd rather fix
> the problem now than wait for a failure to happen and then send for a
> replacement at a time when it may not be so easy or convenient. But
> rather than lie about having a broken knob to get a replacement as
> some people have suggested I'd rather be able to obtain new ones
> officially.
>
> 73,
>
> On 06/12/2009, Don Wilhelm <w3fpr at embarqmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Julian,
>>
>> Not all "older K3s" are experiencing the knob problems.  I have one of
>> the early K3s along with the others in the K3 Firmware Field Test group,
>> and there have been no identified problems with the knobs used at that
>> time in my recollection.
>> This is the result of a batch of faulty knobs, just as Eric has
>> described, and while it will take a while for all of the faulty knobs to
>> be identified, it is just a batch problem - IMHO, there is no need for
>> Elecraft to arbitrarily supply knobs to those K3 owners that do not have
>> a problem.
>> It may take a bit of time for failures to show up, but the "fix" is
>> available at no cost and is as easy as an email to K3support.com.
>>
>> 73,
>> Don W3FPR
>>
>> Julian, G4ILO wrote:
>>     
>>> If they did, no-one would be aware that older K3s are experiencing this
>>>       
>> problem, not just those with knobs from a faulty batch as Eric claimed in
>>     
>>> the posting he referred to. It isn't welcome news but I think it is of
>>> interest to many, and I agree with G4AON that Elecraft should admit that
>>> the
>>> originals were not strong enough and allow all owners of older K3s to
>>> request replacements without waiting for the originals to fail, as it
>>> appears likely they will sooner or later.
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>
>
>   

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