[Elecraft] K3 Knobs

[Stephen Prior]

On 17/05/2009 17:18, "Phil Duff & Ann Duff" <na4m at arrl.net> wrote:

> 
> rfenabled at 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

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