Using a linear pot for blend - help!

steamabacus

Do you have a decent soldering iron? Sometimes a lower powered iron means you're holding the iron there for longer  - a hotter iron can be quicker and less hassle. You really want to hold the iron to a joint for as little time as possible (I've knackered a few pots through overheating by trying to use an underpowered iron).

Also, what solder are you using? The lead-free stuff can be a real pain as it takes much more heat to get it flowing. I only use leaded solder - I have a couple of reels (I prefer the really thin stuff) that will last me the rest of my guitar-modding life.

ICBM

Sounds like something is shorted.

Temporarily disconnect the blend from the volume (just the hot connection) and see if you get buzz when you touch the top terminal of the volume control (with pots turned up full). If no, the short is in the volume/tone/jack part of the circuit. If yes, it's in the blend part.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater... this scheme *does* work, but there is a simple fault somewhere.

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;370418" said:

Sounds like something is shorted.



Temporarily disconnect the blend from the volume (just the hot connection) and see if you get buzz when you touch the top terminal of the volume control (with pots turned up full). If no, the short is in the volume/tone/jack part of the circuit. If yes, it's in the blend part.



Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater... this scheme *does* work, but there is a simple fault somewhere.

The fault is in the blend part.

However, I made such a pigs ear of it, I'm going to redo the pot completely.

I use leaded solder and the iron is hot, I'm good at soldering I just had to redo the whole pot once. The joints all wound up quite messy, and one of the pickups has a fairly knackered shield wire so I need to strip it back more, and hope and pray the wire is long enough to work.

ThePrettyDamned

Oh shit, I found it maybe.

Conductive paint on the inside of the jack plug area.

Well, I'm going to redo it anyway, I want it to be reliable. The shield wire for one pickup was so weak (several strands broke when manipulating it) it would have failed at some point anyway.

Now, I'm going set about removing some paint...

usedtobe

Is there a special 'blend' pot - or can you use a normal vol/tone pot?

ThePrettyDamned

usedtobe;370768" said:

Is there a special 'blend' pot - or can you use a normal vol/tone pot?

Either.

A proper blend pot is like two pots on one control, where one works opposite to the other. So as one turns up, the other goes down. I had one, and it broke - apparently, unusual pots are often poorer quality.

So I'm using a linear pot - these are standard pots, but being linear, they have an even taper all the way around. A log pot would just sort of act closer to a switch I guess.

usedtobe

Thanks!