Push Pull Pot with 6 leads on the pot. (Dual pot options?)

[travist]

Ok maybe that was too much info. I bought a push-pull pot, but when it showed up it turned out to be a dual pot. I'm hoping some experienced people could tell me what I could do with this. Below are details. Thanks!

Hello, I am new to guitar wiring but not too new to low voltage electronics. I am rewiring my guitar and bought a push-pull 500k pot. I was expecting a volume pot with the dpdt switch for coil tap. I noticed that this pot has 6 leads on it instead of the normal three. Now I see that the description says DUAL pot. It isn't a concentric pot and was not labeled as a blend pot. I found the spec sheet and from what I can tell it has 2 resistors in the pot.



Can anyone tell me about this? I am into having options available. I'm having trouble finding definitive answers online.



I'm guessing that it is one pot in the up position and a separate pot in the down position? I cannot find documentation that confirms this. I have read about a combo volume/tone where its a volume and when you pull it up its a tone knob. I've read when you pull it up for the tone the volume goes to full which I don't think I care for.



I'm rewiring because I now have a piezo bridge pickup. I have 2 mag. humbuckers. I planned on making the 3 position pickup selector switch between mag. and piezo pickups. Mag. - Both - Piezo. Then I bought a 3 way toggle switch I wanted to use for the magnetic pickups. (My thought was the toggle switch is easier to switch back and forth and I wouldn't be switching between mag. & piezo too much.) Right now it's wired with a volume and tone knob for the magnetic p/u's and a volume for the piezo. I haven't completely decided about this but I was thinking of getting a concentric pot for volume/tone for the piezo. I am also planning on wiring a preamp for the piezo. P/U's go to a TRS out.



I'd appreciate it if you guys could tell me what I could do with this. (Besides shove it up my a$$)



Thank you!



I bought a Bourns Dual Mini Guitar Potentiometer w/ Push Pull Switch, 500K Audio, Solid Shaft. PDB183-GTR21

Spec sheet

[newey]

travist-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

We've had some discussions about this past recently. You are correct, it is a dual-gang pot with a DPDT push/pull switch attached.

It has a single shaft which rotates both pots. As with all P/P pots, the switch is totally separate from the pots, unless you wire the two together.

The P/P switch can be used for many things, as with any P/P switch. You can certainly use the switch to switch the piezo in/out, but since it's a two-position switch, you won't be able to use it to have the piezo by itself and in conjunction with the mag pups both (if one position of the P/P is "piezo off", the other can be either "piezo alone" or "piezo with mags", it can't be both at once).

The dual gang pot can indeed be wired so as to be a volume pot in one position, and a tone pot when pulled up. Probably the most common use for the dual-gang pot is as a master tone control when using dual volume pots. If a regular pot is used for a master tone after two volume controls, there is interaction between the pots. Using the duallie allows each pickup to have its own tone pot, they're just mounted on one shaft. The wiring is then done like any LP/SG style guitar having two vols and two tone pots.

[travist]

Thanks Newey! I tried the search function but must have not worded my query correctly.

So if I understand you correctly, though it is 2 resistors you only access one at a time depending on whether the pot is pulled up or pushed down?

I bought this pot to be a volume control and using the dpdt switch to split my bridge humbucker. To continue to do this it seems like I would need to wire both pots together as a single volume pot, otherwise when I split the coils I could only use the pot for whatever its wired for in that position. Is that correct?

Seems like I would be better served using this for another function, volume/tone for piezo or both tones for mag. and piezo, and getting a regular push-pull pot for the volume. 

If anyone has any tips, tricks or other ideas I could use this dual pot for I'd be very interested.


Concerning switching between piezo and magnetic, I am using a 3 position switch for that. The push-pull pot was just for coil splitting.

Thanks again!

[newey]

The switch functions independently of the dual pots unless you wire them together in some fashion. You can certainly use the P/P to split the HB, and use the pot for the volume. Just leave one gang of the pot unwired, and wire the remaining gang just as any volume pot.

The two gangs of the pot are also independent of each other as well. Turning the shaft/knob simply turns both elements together. It's just two pots on a common shaft.

This is unlike blend or pan pots, which have a center detent, where rotation one way increases the resistance on one half and decreases the other, with the opposite effect when turned the other way.

Dimensionally, this particular part seems quite deep, so it would be advisable to measure your cavity depth closely to be sure that it will fit.

[Runewalker]

Yes I stumbled across this unusual dual ganged PP pot and was thrilled find it. Notified the community here:

PP Dual Ganged

Immediately applied to a small volume control cavity with a large number of switching options here:

HH Cubed

Comments about it:

• It works!
• it is the dime sized pot profile not the full quarter sized for those that prefer the large carbon tracks.
• It has a more familiar torque on the action. Many dual gang pots I have uses seem to take more significant torquing power to turn compared to standard non-ganged pots. This one "feels" more like a conventional pot. That is a minor feature, but moving between a number of guitars with different wiring it will feel more familiar to the way conventional tone pots act.

Great little part.

Newey on the depth, I was concerned about that as well, but with the small pots it turned out to be not a big issue. But your alert is worth doing the measurements on before buying to make sure. If you look at the headless chassis pix in th HH cubed it has a pix of the cavity and you can visually see the difference between a full sized concentric pot (which is the same height as a full sized dual ganged pot) and this one, at least in depth within the cavity.

RW