Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

[mindsfinest]

Hi,

I have three of Seymour Duncan 250K pots on order for a Stratocaster build.

As per Seymour Duncan's wiring diagram:

https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.seymourduncan.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F05%2F3S_5W_1V_2Tb.pdf

I need to solder a lot to the back of each pot.

I have been reading that normally you need to scratch up the back of the pot and use flux to clean it. Do you still need to do that with these Seymour Duncan pots? Any tips for soldering to the back of these specific pots? Should I use the S indentation on the back?

[Mincer]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

Welcome to the forum!

I don't scuff up the back of the pot or clean it. I solder right to the back. I use a 40 watt iron, tin the wires and that's it.

[ibanezrocks]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

I always mean to scuff up the back of the pot before soldering but never actually have. It's not crucial, it just makes things a bit easier.

Having a good soldering iron and knowing how to solder is more important.

Sent from my BlackBerry using Tapatalk

[Silence Kid]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

Rosin/flux is a good cheat for me anyway.

[beaubrummels]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

I never scuff the back but I do tin it and it solders like a champ in mere milliseconds.

[kramersteen]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

I just wired up a project yesterday i did scuff the hardware but it was all second hand parts draw stuf so i had to. They should make the pots with 4 solder lugs for grounding that way you could ground the wires individually without having to group them on the top.

[Clint 55]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

If you don't have to worry about destroying a terminal, you can use an 100 watt iron to dominate it.

I use a dual iron attack. 45 watt for the lugs, 100 watt for pot backs and hb covers.

[Ewizard]

Re: Soldering the Back of Seymour Duncan 250K Pot

Technically speaking you don't have to solder to the back of the pots. If you can make a ground wire that is centralized to any other point in the guitar, they can all link to the needed ground lugs on the pots. Theo only reason that the back of the pots were used is because of convenience and perhaps to have a solid wire to keep the pots from turning.

I prefer to have a single grounding point where all grounds meet at. This makes it so I don't have to heat up and potentially ruin a pot ( yes, excessive heat can ruin a pot ). I treat the guitar much like the amps I build, use a star grounding scheme that only grounds sections of the amp to a single point. Since the guitar is a single " section " I try and wire it so that all grounds end up at only one spot. It does mean more wires and perhaps a larger lug to connect to, but I have had better luck, fewer issues and much cleaner looking wiring as a result.

More or less though, I don't like soldering to the back of a pot. I think it looks bad, is really not needed and makes replacement of said pot a PITA.