Hi Tord, I personally apologize for your problems with the K3 concentric AF/RF knobs, or any delays from us sending them to you. We send out all replacements very quickly and I can only guess that they were delayed at international customs. I checked our records, and our sales department received your replacement request Thursday, June 18th, 2009. We shipped the replacements on Monday, June 22, 2009. We try to work hard to send all replacement parts quickly, as we know how important this is to our customers. (For the fastest replacement parts service, please send future parts emails to [email protected] )
In the case of the concentric Volume/RF gain knobs, we solved this problem several months ago. It turns out that unknown to us, our knob vendor had used the wrong black pigment in a single production lot of those knobs earlier this year, which made the plastic become more brittle over several months. Some K3s would have the problem, and many others would be perfectly OK. We only discovered what was happening later into the year as more of these began to break and that is why the early replacements had the same problem. We thought we were sending out good ones when in fact they had the same problem. They would test OK here and then fatigue and crack in the field. Once we found the problem, we required the knob manufacturer to take back all of the defective knobs and supply us with new ones. In addition, we also made the decision to change the formulation of the plastic to add glass fiber reinforcement for extra insurance. As a result the knobs that we currently ship are almost impossible to destroy. We actually tested them by over tightening the set screw severely, and the set screw stripped out before the plastic cracked :-) They are very strong. New K3s have been shipping with these new stronger concentric knobs for some time. These new knobs match the rest of the knobs on the K3, and we will replace any broken knob for free. ** When we now receive a report of a broken concentric knob for the AF volume/RF gain pots, we now send the customer a complete set of four new replacements (2 inner and 2 outer knobs.) We also now include the required hex wrench with the replacement knobs. One other note - Gary is incorrect about the cost of these knobs. They are in fact custom designed by Wayne and manufactured to our specifications. They actually cost us more than off the shelf knobs. They are not cheap knobs. (But we are embarrassed by the mistake made by our knob supplier.) Tord - We will send you four new concentric knobs and the Allen wrench immediately, and we will ship them to you via international priority mail. Please contact me directly if you have further concerns or questions, or of these knobs do not arrive in a reasonable amount of time. 73, Eric WA6HHQ ===== > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
