volume pot not going to zero

[TeleJr24]

Hi, I recently changed the volume and tone controls on my TeleJr. It came with 1Meg pots for both and while the neck sounded great, the bridge was too bright for my tastes. So I bought a 500k volume (solid shaft) and a 250k no-load tone control. I just thought I'd try the no-load tone control in case 250k was too low for the neck pickup.

Anyway, I wired it right but the volume never goes to zero. It only goes maybe to about 60% volume. Any ideas why? It is just a bad pot?

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Did you remember to properly ground the volume pot, all the way to the ground on the jack?

If not that, by any chance did you let solder drip down the lug into the pot when soldering?

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Beau could have the solution...IF you "wired it right" as you say. Chances are you didn't.

Did you ground the third lug of the vol pot to the back of the vol pot? Did you ground the back of the vol pot to the ground of the switch to the back of the tone pot to the ground/sleeve of the output jack?

Did you overheat the vol pot when you were soldering?

Is this how you wired it?

http://www.seymourduncan.com/wiring-diagrams?meta_params=view-all,teles

 

[Mincer]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

To me, it sounds like the 3rd lug isn't properly grounded. Check the connection, and make sure that 3rd lug isn't touching any other lugs.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

^ Yeah, that was my first thought.

 

[TeleJr24]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Thanks for the replies. I'll check all of these suggestions tonight, but if I did not ground properly then the volume knob would not work at all right? Because as I turn the knob down, some signal does go to ground since it does work a little bit.

As for dripping solder into the pot... hmmm. I did have an issue with the left lug but I can't imagine that solder went all the way down the lug and inside the pot.

 

[tabeck5]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

I always test the pots prior to install, 1 to check if it is within the advertised tolerance and 2 when I make a mistake later on it is one thing I can take out of the equation.

 

[AlexR]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Not grounding the pot properly does exactly what you have described.....a little volume drop initially (via the tone pot ground) then stopping.

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Hi, I recently changed the volume and tone controls on my TeleJr. It came with 1Meg pots for both and while the neck sounded great, the bridge was too bright for my tastes. So I bought a 500k volume (solid shaft) and a 250k no-load tone control. I just thought I'd try the no-load tone control in case 250k was too low for the neck pickup.

Anyway, I wired it right but the volume never goes to zero. It only goes maybe to about 60% volume. Any ideas why? It is just a bad pot?

cold joints can do this too. I have had this happen twice. Still not sure which lug does this, but just reflowed all of them both times and things started working properly.

 

[TeleJr24]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Okay, so the third lug on the volume pot was not grounded properly. But here is the weird part. The wire had a dark coat of something (burned maybe) and that was preventing the solder and lug to adhere to it.

Can a solid wire (not braided) oxidize or something and therefore not solder well?

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

Yeah sometimes they have an enamel coating to prevent corrosion.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: volume pot not going to zero

You can just scrape off the coating or sand it off an it will work just fine. Sometimes it helps to use soldering flux.