frednugent
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 6
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Post by frednugent on Feb 26, 2023 18:48:34 GMT -5
Hi all.
Newb here on the soldering front. Just completed my first install of pickups, a new switch and pots. Everything seems to work as it should except the Vol doesn't actually drop to zero when the vol pot turned all the way down. It just sounds quieter. I take it that the signal is not going all the way to ground? Could it be my 'ground soldering' to the pots was inadequate? My iron just doesn't quite get hot enough to get a good pool of solder going on the pots as the metal is so much thicker than wire as it is a pen type solder unit, not one of the robust ones with great temp control. Don't get me wrong, it's great for small projects but not so much bigger stuff. Thus the connections on top of my pots are kind of chunky and not nice, liquid pools of melted solder. They stick, so I thought it would work.
Any advice or ideas of what to check?
Thanks
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Post by newey on Feb 26, 2023 19:55:15 GMT -5
frednugent- First off, how do you have the volume pot wired? As far as your soldering goes, if you have a multimeter you can check the connections. If not, just hitting them very quickly with your iron may help with a dodgy connection, do just enough to flow the solder. Get on, get off quickly. Your solder joints will adhere to the back of the pot better if you scuff the back of the pot in the area you're going to solder to, using a bit of sandpaper. Then a quick wipe with some solvent to take away the oils from your fingers. Soldering to pots is problematic, it's easy to fry the innards of the pot if you apply too much heat. But since you've already done so, might as well continue on with it. But hold off on that for now, let's look at how it's wired first. Also, what type of pots did you use?
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Post by unreg on Feb 26, 2023 22:20:07 GMT -5
Newb here on the soldering front. Hi ; welcome! 🎉 Since you are new to the soldering front, you may want to read through this entire semi-old thread… has everything to do with guitar soldering… and I made mistakes so it’s important to read it in its entirety…. also, much wisdom is shared Has things like this: The Rosen Solder has flux inside; that might be burning? The flux in solder is meant to perform several useful functions. Among them removing oxygen from oxides by a chemical process known as reduction. Also it dissolves oils, grease and floats away surface contaminants so that intimate metal-to-metal contact can be made on a microscopic level and a proper and conductive bond will be created. The resultant 'soup' will naturally be carried away to the exterior of the joint but with extended heating, it (including the flux itself) can breakdown into ugly black residue which will cause problems. Getting rid of the spent flux from the soldering iron tip is crucial. Hence the necessity of cleaning with a damp sponge. My soldering thread: guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/8943/buying-solder-recommended-brand-store |
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Post by reTrEaD on Feb 26, 2023 22:24:40 GMT -5
Everything seems to work as it should except the Vol doesn't actually drop to zero when the vol pot turned all the way down. It just sounds quieter. How much quieter (compared to when the volume is at max)? Slightly less? Have as loud? Quarter? Eighth? Any advice or ideas of what to check? The first place to start would be to perform a guitar colonoscopy. Connect a guitar cable to your guitar then check the resistance from tip to sleeve on the other end of the cable. With the volume control at fully CCW, With most guitar wiring, the resistance should be near zero in this condition. A couple of ohms is not of much concern. Hundreds or thousands of ohms indicates a very serious problem. If you don't own a multimeter, buy one. They're dirt cheap these days and even a bargain basement unit will be quite useful. The next step would be to connect your ohmmeter directly to the wiper lug and to the CCW lug on the volume pot with the volume knob fully counter-clockwise. If the resistance is more than a few ohms, your volume pot is defective. After that, measure from the CCW lug of the volume pot to the sleeve of the output jack. |
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frednugent
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 6
Likes: 0
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Post by frednugent on Feb 28, 2023 2:48:41 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to read through the recommended soldering thread for a start and go from there. As for not soldering to the back of pots, it never struck me there was another option but perhaps one could stick to the grounding lugs themselves as this is what they are meant for I suppose. Still, most wiring diagrams use them so I figured it was kind of standard.
Anyway, I'll get out my multi meter and run a few tests as suggested, check my wires against the diagram I'm using and update with more info if that doesn't sort it out.
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2023 6:49:40 GMT -5
As for not soldering to the back of pots, it never struck me there was another option The option is called "star grounding" and a quick search here for that will yield a lot of threads. |
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