Overheating Pots

[OdgeUK]

Hi all

Just quickie. Was wiring my Squier CV Strat last night to HSS with a split humbucker and noticed that my Allparts Audio taper 250K push/pull volume pot seems to have died. It now acts like a tone control rather than cuts the volume (although it does still split the humbucker on push/pull).

I did have a hell of a job soldering to the back of that particular pot (there are four earths which I have located onto the pot back).

Is this a typical symptom of an overheated pot? I thought overheated pots usually just went noisy, or lost their taper?

Anyway, I've ordered a replacement (£8.00!), and a spare as well this time :15: So I'll see if my suspicions are correcet. That is, if the postal strike ever allows the new pots to actually arrive this decade

 

[ex-250]

Re: Overheating Pots

ive had something similar happen a while back, it was just wired wrong.

 

[OdgeUK]

Re: Overheating Pots

Hmm, I'll recheck. It WAS working though and the only changes I made were on the 5-way when I wired a pickup out of phase. Knowing my wiring skills though, very likley

 

[ex-250]

Re: Overheating Pots

yeah, the pickup still worked fine but the pot had very little effect on volume and it was noisy as hell. i forget what i did wrong, that was a while ago, but im pretty sure it was something in the wiring.

 

[OdgeUK]

Re: Overheating Pots

Well, you were right. I hadn't earthed one of the volume pot lugs. Sometimes it really pays, no matter how correct you are sure your wiring is, to go back to the original schematic and go through it again connection by connection :cool2:

Got a couple of spare 250k Audio Taper Push/Pull pots now

 

[Stratman]

Re: Overheating Pots

Yea, had a girl friend that did this once..

Put a pot on the stove, filled with wate, and then took a long bath....

Came home to a terrible smell of the aluminum pot burning...

----

Wait, you mean guitar and amp pots.... That's a different story!

Next time, tin your wiring first and then scratch the back of the pot, tin it and then solder the two together.

25 watt soldering iron