I'm sick of my knob doing crazy things and I'm going to replace it. I thought it made sense to see if anyone else wanted to go in on a group purchase. They're not expensive ($2.50 to $5.00 a piece), but I'm sure that shipping will be extortionate.

If not, I'll probably go ahead and get a good handful just in case.

I was going to get one as well as mine is doing the same thing, and I'd rather replace it than wear out the remote. But I'm over here, so probably can't help make any savings :-)

Good point. Anyone in North America?

Sure, I'll get one. Don't need it yet, but it's not a bad idea to have spare parts if a refurb job becomes necessary.

All three of my empegs are MkIIa Rio branded machines.

I suppose you folks ought to make a note as to _which_ rotary encoder is (1) wearing out, and (2) being purchased as a replacement.

The Mk2 and Mk2a used different encoders, and different means of soldering them to the displayboards. I think.

I still have a small number of spare Mk2 encoders at home, for the cost of postage to needy BBS members.

Cheers

The wife and my mk2a's both have terrible issues with the encoders.

I'd like to buy two from whoever would like to supply them.

thanks!

I didn't think to check. I'll do that tonight.

The original Mk2 empegs have blue coloured through-hole encoders, and the Mk2a RioCar units normally have green-ish surface-mount encoders.

Okay, I've been trying to decipher the ALPS part numbers. This is the one listed on the parts list:

EC11E15244C0

This exact model number still seems to be available at some suppliers. ALPS, however, does not list it. They list models with the two last digits different. I thought that might just be a batch number, but they currently offer two EC11E15244 models with different end numbers. The difference between them is the travel of the push action, G1 == 0.5mm and B2 == 1.5mm.

EC seems to mean "encoder". 11 seems to refer to the size of the switch body in millimeters. E may refer to the torque rating and/or operating life. 15 seems to be the number of pulses. 2 seems to refer to the number of detents as multiples of pulses. (It actually seems to only ever be 2 or 3, with 3 being detentless.) 4 seems to refer to the travel of the push button mechanism (0 == none, 4 == 0.5mm and sometimes 1.5mm, 5 == 1.5mm). The next 4 seems to refer to operating life. (Seems like higher is relatively more within the same class.) The last two, I'm still not sure.

That's a through-hole unit. The surface-mount units seem to be the same except J instead of E. There are also through-hole units that are K instead of E, and they seem to have longer lifespans, mostly.

I'm inclined to get a longer-lifespan unit to see if it still works. I'd rather only have to do this once.

It seems to me that we've been through all this before.
As I recall, you can't get the identical encoder for the MkIIa. The replacement has a slightly longer shaft, which makes the button stand a bit proud.
Stu installed one of these on my 'upgraded' empeg.

I'm not sure about all the other details- pulses, button travel, etc.

2-3 minutes with a metal file and that's easily fixed.

-ml

Preferably before it's been soldered into place.

So much for my memory: the above description is somewhat backwards. The blue ones are indeed from the Mk2, but were surface-mounted. The green-ish ones were for the Mk2a, and are through-hole mounted.

Cheers

Maybe.

I finally got around to opening up my empeg and measuring the current encoder. This is for a Mk2 surface-mount encoder.

The component part is 13mm × 11.5mm. The contacts connect to the short sides, so that it's even longer when those are included. Three contacts at the top and two at the bottom. The component is about 5mm tall.

The shaft is 6mm in diameter. The total length from the tip of the shaft to the top of the component is about 15.5mm. The length of the traveling part is about 10.5mm, and the travel is about 0.5mm.

Add all that together and the total height is 20.5mm.

The height of the existing product is 24.5mm. Not really a big problem to grind off 4mm of the shaft, but the shaft is now only 7mm tall, leaving only 3mm of shaft to remain.

The current knob seems to slide about 7mm onto the shaft.

The through-hole ones are available where the non-traveling part of the shaft is 7mm, which leaves 10mm for the traveling part, which might just barely allow for the shaft to be ground down.

Just sorted my Mk II out today - slightly fiddly job just making sure nothing gets damaged (especially the VFD) and the contact which sits almost under the IR board is quite tricky to get a soldering iron to, so it took a 3mm bit, and about 5 minutes of careful work to get the old faulty one off.

The new one was a piece of cake - I just followed Mark Lord's guidance on lots of flux!!! Made life very easy. Soldering the new one took about 30 seconds all in.

Super!

I waited about four months but I finally got my EC11J1524802 from Mouser. This one has a life expectancy of one million cycles. I believe the one in the Empeg was rated at fifteen thousand.

Mouse said it was thought the hole mounting but they lie. Still it was not hard to solder the pads to the holes.

Since they had to order 100 for me to get my two they now have 98 in stock.

Now I can turn the volume down without it going full blast or to nothing, nice.

Is that the one for the Mark IIa? If so, I'd be interested in five if you want to let me know costs to ship to Scotland, so that would give me 1 spare for my IIa, 1 for my brother and 3 for anyone else in UK who might want one at some point.

Or maybe ten? Dunno - whatever is easy I guess.

Well, I have a Mark IIa and it has the through the hole type connection. Per the specs on the encoder it was supposed to be a through the hole type, but it showed up as the surface mount type. That was no big deal. I just filled the holes from the back with solder and that worked fine. So I guess you could say this encoder works on either Mark II. It sure has a better quality feel than the old one. I did do some other mods to the encoder: ground the shaft some; removed the corner mounting pad (really didn’t probably need to) and cut off a couple plastic centering tabs with a razor blade.

I would think you could order directly from Mouser no matter where you are. They have no minimum order, which is nice. They were $3.20 a piece, which I consider a good price.

If you do need me to send them to you I can.

The data sheet shows it as surf mnt. It's also noted as smt in the details, but yes the main description is wrong.

The models with thru hole pins are EC11J......
And show up in Newark's catalog.

The 1,000,000 cycle life is for the push button. The encoder is rated 100,000 cycles. Anyone know if that is turns or increments?

Glenn - mmm looks like ECll*K* are through holes: 688-EC11K1524801

http://uk.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=YMSFtX0bdJBV%2fWLgT6l0hg%3d%3d

Delivery Charge: £12.00 .... ouch.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/optical-encoder-mechanical-encoder/7295668/?searchTerm=EC11K1524801

This is just a reminder that I have at least 50 pieces of MKII (non-notched) encoders. They're available for the cost of shipping.

Does Rob S. still have a spares cache in Europe?