Dismantling, cleaning and reassembling Kontrol S4.

[SlvrDragon50]

Anyone know if you can get the potentiometers Stateside somewhere?

Looking at a couple S4s but they have broken loop and/or size/set knobs.

[makar1]

I'm fairly sure the S4 uses ALPS pots if that helps.

This looks like the one
http://www.alps.com/WebObjects/catal...1K11_list.html

[SlvrDragon50]

It seems like the S4 has 3 pin and 4 pin pots though.

3 pins for the loop/transport knobs and then 4 pins for the EQ knobs.

I saw your post over on NI, but that was in Greece :/

Thank you though, would you happen to know any of the other specs like turns, resistance, etc.? Or should I be able to identify that from the pot.

[makar1]

Well the loop/transport are entirely different as they are metal? shafts and are encoders rather than regular potentiometers.
Could be one of these: http://www.alps.com/WebObjects/catal...tal_list1.html

If you're thinking of replacing pots you should already have a multimeter capable of measuring resistances - I don't have an S4 anymore to test myself.

[SlvrDragon50]

Ahh. Didn't realize they were different.

Well, eBay decided it for me and I didn't win the auction unfortunately Gives me some time though to research this more.

[skamunista]

thanks for this- very informative of some of the things i will be facing if i try to open my S2. I'm considering doing so to spray some electrical cleaner under my cue/sample buttons, but am wondering if just shooting it through the cracks in the face would do the trick or if the buttons can be removed from above. any advice?

[laserbeak43]

Hi,
Thanks for this. Anyone have any extra tips for getting the faceplates off?
Got my Faceplate off, just had to grow a pair. Now, i need to get my slider's case off, preferably without having to de-solder...
20140802_093702.jpg

It worked!!! But now my FX knobs are going nuts...LOL... Opening her back up....

[laserbeak43]

Hi,
Thanks for this. Anyone have any extra tips for getting the faceplates off?
Got my Faceplate off, just had to grow a pair. Now, i need to get my slider's case off, preferably without having to de-solder...
20140802_093702.jpg

fail.
I guess im just sending it in to NI....

[jpuddy]

Thanks so much for posting thing! I read this about a week ago and was terrified... but today I bit the bullet and got it done. One of my line faders was glitchy, as well as my crossfader, and I'd tried compressed air, tried vaccuuming, but neither helped.

I followed the instructions to tear down, and it's actually not as scary as it sounds. Removing the metal and plastic face plates are tricky, but not terribly so. Just take your time. I got the second metal place off in about 5 minutes, with a combination of small screwdrivers working things back and forth. Also of note is that if you only need to work on your line faders, then you don't need to remove the metal face plates at all, just the plastic plate in the middle.

I used compressed air, some rags, and MG Chemicals Contact Cleaner to thorough clean out both the crossfader and the line faders. It's easy enough to remove the metal casing on the crossfader, but a pain in the butt to do so for the line faders, and I didn't have the courage to desolder them, so I just cleaned them in place. Upon re-assembly everything works and there's no glitching!

Also during re-assembly, I didn't bother screwing down the pots underneath the metal face plates, so if I ever need to remove those boards in future, I won't have to trouble with the faceplates.

I'll upload a video shortly.

[jpuddy]

Here's the vid:

Thanks again for the instructions!