S100 slider restoration

EMS Synthi 100 has many panel components that are extremely weak quality. Sliders are no exception. You can still source NOS ones from EMS, but not sure what to do if they run out of them, as there is no direct replacement for those. As a test I have been cleaning old ones and see how well they do over time.

The rubber seal get’s slightly hard over time and does bad job keeping dust out from the slider, so I simply remove that. On NOS sliders the rubber can cause slider to be jerky also.

For the rest, my recipe is to first clean everything with IPA. Use ultrasonic cleaner on everything. Then apply F5 (F100 I guess would be even better) for the resistive track. Molykote DX on the actual sliding track to ensure smooth slide. Then put everything back together. Make sure that super tiny graphite (?) bits on wiper don’t jump out. Slider has been closed with 1.5mm rivets, I used tiny screw/nut combo to close them.

Slider travel is 70mm and the slider groove is 80mm. I’m considering in the future using slider with 60mm travel with additional panel plate as replacement. Radio Belgrade Synthi has panel plates already on original sliders already, so making something similar that would allow new and more commonly available sliders to be installed could be something to consider in the future.