Bossa Bass Pots
 

I have a Bossa 5 string Bass left handed (the Japan made obscure builder). My Volume pot is starting to go bad and I'm looking for a replacement. It's a 50k pot mounted on a circuit board. I'm still looking through the mouser catalog trying to find something, this thing is bigger then a phone book. If you would like pictures of the electronics I can post some. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Rather than looking through the print catalog, do a search (with specific critera) on the Mouser web site.

It's a little more work but you can also use a normal 50k mini pot and solder jumpers to the circuit board. Just cut the metal tabs of the existing pot instead of desoldering and then solder the jumpers to the tabs.

If it's just one pot and you aren't ordering a bunch of other electronics stuff, you can get the pot for about the same price at Mammoth Electronics (and it's much easier to navigate since it's all music-related electronics).

If the pot is A50k, it's audio; B50k is linear. Just pick the one you need and the size of the right-angle PCB mount that looks like yours and you're good to go.

There any way to tell if its reverse taper or a normal taper while it's in the instrument?
It is a left handed instrument.

Is it a linear pot? If not, which way do you rotate it to turn the volume up? Also, where do you notice the greatest volume shift - at the beginning, or at the end of the rotation?

It's an audio taper pot. Counterclockwise to turn up the volume. The volume shift is pretty even.

I can't imagine the pot will actually be worn down, why don't you clean it?

The pot needs to be changed. Sometimes it will not turn off.

Coincidentally, I opened up one of my Bossas today to adjust a trimpot.

While I had it open, I noticed that the main potentiometers are pretty odd. They are PCB mounted, but they mount on the underside of the PCB with the shaft going through the PCB.

Could be very difficult to find replacements.