This one didn’t have much luck, but I have since found another way to fix this board because honestly, volume control is important!

A suggestion from a YouTube viewer had me trying some contact cleaner on the troublesome VR802 volume control. It was a Friday night, I’d managed to arrive at the supermarket an hour after it closed, and somehow there was still an Aiwa Mega-CD repair to be done. Naturally! At least I had pizza on the way, although ordering dinner after nine o’clock was becoming another expensive little adventure.

The contact cleaner came with some rather enthusiastic warnings about flammable vapour, so I took the cleaning outside and gave the control time to dry before applying power again. It certainly made the control easier to turn, although I did wonder whether some of that old grease was supposed to be there. Time to see whether we’d finally recovered proper control of the left audio channel.

Unfortunately, no such luck. The static was reduced, which was something, but the actual volume problem remained. So out came the Hakko 808, and I removed the seven-pin potentiometer from the board to see what was going on inside.

The control came apart more easily than expected, revealing a collection of little contacts and other interesting bits and pieces. I wasn’t entirely sure how to repair it just yet, so more investigating was required.

The seven connections were rather interesting, particularly the one associated with the low end of the control. That’s where I’d been having trouble, so I wanted to understand whether the problem was inside the potentiometer or somewhere on the board.

There was also a suspicious-looking area of PCB near the control. It appeared to have a small crack, although I couldn’t see obvious damage to the tracks. Another thing for the multimeter to investigate while everything was apart.

I’ve repaired plenty of computers over the years, but these multi-section volume controls aren’t something I normally take apart. I found a few videos explaining how potentiometers work and managed to watch just enough to convince myself I should have a go. What could possibly go wrong?

Thankfully, the component came apart without immediately disintegrating into a hundred tiny pieces. There were several internal sections, little sliding contacts and a track arrangement that needed further examination. I was rather pleased that it looked as though it might go back together again.

In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have used quite so much contact cleaner. It seemed to disturb the grease that was supposed to protect the control. Lucky for me, the thing was already faulty anyway!

So we’re still not at the point where the Aiwa’s volume control behaves as it should. The next job is working out exactly where the connection is failing and whether anything inside this little assembly can be repaired.

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