Are OT mk1 encoders that bad or are mine shot?

I’ve had the mk1 since 2017 and recently replaced it with an mk2 for the studio. I’m keeping the mk1 for playing out, and it’s been in storage for the last couple of months. I took it out this weekend to prep for a gig and wow – the encoders are bad! It takes several turns to make go from 0 to 100% where the mk2 does it in one twist. I knew the mk2 encoders were better, but are the mk1 encoders that bad or should I replace mine? Would love insight from anyone who went from OT mk1 to mk2.

When you press down on the encoder you can turn the whole range with one twist of the hand, normal operation takes several turns, yes.

A faulty encoder would result in jumping values, turning without any parameter changes, inconsistent behaviour etc.
I don´t remember if test mode does check the encoders (I´m not sure this is even possible), but it certainly sounds like normal behaviour.

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Test mode does check the encoders - if they’re bad, the lights won’t scroll smoothly along the track. :slight_smile:

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Ah, that’s a nice way of doing it.

Your OT is simply angry with you. And seriously, if you don’t use encoders oftenly, you can have this kind of problems.

There are specific sprays for that. Turn the knobs for while (24 hours should suffice :content:). Should be much better.

Thanks for this, that helped a lot. Encoders D and E are pretty smooth but all the rest are jumpy. I’ll try cleaning them soon, if that does not work I don’t mind replacing.

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Be careful using contact cleaner in encoders. They aren’t the same as potentiometers, and it isnt really the right thing to use (and for some types it can easily damage them, but you’d know if you had one of those because it’s going to be somethign expensive like an optical encoder).

This is the best way to clean a typical encoder (although personally I like to take a little more time to hand clean the conductive parts with contact cleaner on a swab and then re-lubricate, instead of using control cleaner):

If you spray control cleaner in it you probably won’t do any harm but you also probably won’t hep much either.

If you spray CONTACT cleaner in it (or worse yet into a normal pot) it will flush out the lubricant, and at best it will feel bad and wear out prematurely. Contact cleaner is what you would use to do a deep clean, and you would need to add new lubricant after (which in nearly all encoders means opening it up like the video shows).

Spraying control cleaner directly o the part without opening it only really works with potentiometers that aren’t sealed, with an encoder you probably aren’t going to get enough inside to make a difference.

It sounds like the OP is describing the different encoder resolutions of the MKI and MKII, not an actual problem.

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