Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

[John Wymore]

I'm not sure if this is a permanent change or not but I was opening up some of my newest shipment of CTS pots today to adjust the values and noticed the resistive element now looks different.

Out of curiousity I put the meter on one and checked it turned all the way down. It read 0 ohms versus something around 12K all the way down on the older pots. Looks like maybe we can throw away our nail polish!!

Here's a pic of the new element:

 

[Artie]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Thats not "no-load" . . . thats quality control. A no-load pot would read infinite (open) on one end. All pots should read close to zero on one end.

Keep the nail polish.

 

[John Wymore]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Oop's ..... your right!! Brain fart on my part!!

Just the same, the new ones read zero versus the old ones reading around 12K FWIW .... :bigthumb:

 

[Artie]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Its definitely an interesting carbon pattern also. I may have to order a few of these from you.

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Thanks John, great info.

Was gonna order some soon.

Best,

B

 

[DracoAran]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Here you go bro.

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/pots.htm

 

[Artie]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Hmm... anybody care to explain how to do the no load mod to a tone pot? I just tried searching and couldn't find anything specific.

There's a couple different ways to do this, depending on the pot construction and what you want. Use this pic as a reference:

If you're sure that you'll never revert the pot back to "normal", you can cut the trace, using an exacto knife, at either the blue line or the red line. That can be a bit tricky to do, and its harder to do, the better quality the pot is. Its also virtually impossible to reverse the process.

The next way, is to apply some nail polish to either of the green splotches. Not both. In both methods, you have to be careful that you select the proper side depending on what the function will be. For a no-load tone control, you'ld do the "blue" side.

Artie

 

[Marcel]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

Take a look in the Vault ... there is a link John (?) posted a howto..

 

[Marcel]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/pots.htm

 

[JacksonMIA]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

That's awesome quality control. I guess that's one of the reasons they're considered the best. Thanks for the new info, John.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Change to CTS Pots .... Now No Load as Standard

I use Super Glue instead of nail polish...either would work fine.

You can use your new no-load pot as a blender pot as well as for a no-load tone pot.

Lew