Post by JohnH on Feb 4, 2011 3:06:41 GMT -5
A popular option to a achieve a brighter, more powerful tone is to reduce the load on the pickups, either with a 'solo' switch to bypass the pots, or a 'no-load' tone pot, which disconnects at a maximum setting.
But how about a ‘no-load’ volume pot? This is not possible with a standard single pot, since the necessary disconnection of the wiper from the track, which works fine on a tone pot using just two lugs, doesn’t work on a volume pot that needs all three lugs.
But here is a way of doing it using a dual-gang pot. It’s rather simple, so I won’t be surprised if someone points out that it has been done before. But until they do, I’m claiming it as a new idea, and you read it here first!
The upper and lower legs of a normal potentiometer are made on different tracks of a dual-gang pot, as shown, and the grounded leg is cut at the max ‘10’ position. So as it reaches maximum, the pickups and the hot output become connected, as usual, and the pot is disconnected from ground, resulting in ‘no-load’.
It is usually quite simple to open up a dual-gang pot and do some surgery on the rear track, particularly on a full-size 24mm pot. All that is involved is to make a disconnection on the grounded track (either by scraping the track or with nail-polish/superglue), at the end where the wiper reaches maximum.
This device could be made either with a 250k or a 500k dual-gang. But I think it could be particularly interesting with a 250k, so that the benefits of lower output impedance are achieved at medium settings, due to a lower value pot, with a nice kick up to maximum to cut through in the no-load maximum position.
cheers
John
But how about a ‘no-load’ volume pot? This is not possible with a standard single pot, since the necessary disconnection of the wiper from the track, which works fine on a tone pot using just two lugs, doesn’t work on a volume pot that needs all three lugs.
But here is a way of doing it using a dual-gang pot. It’s rather simple, so I won’t be surprised if someone points out that it has been done before. But until they do, I’m claiming it as a new idea, and you read it here first!
The upper and lower legs of a normal potentiometer are made on different tracks of a dual-gang pot, as shown, and the grounded leg is cut at the max ‘10’ position. So as it reaches maximum, the pickups and the hot output become connected, as usual, and the pot is disconnected from ground, resulting in ‘no-load’.
It is usually quite simple to open up a dual-gang pot and do some surgery on the rear track, particularly on a full-size 24mm pot. All that is involved is to make a disconnection on the grounded track (either by scraping the track or with nail-polish/superglue), at the end where the wiper reaches maximum.
This device could be made either with a 250k or a 500k dual-gang. But I think it could be particularly interesting with a 250k, so that the benefits of lower output impedance are achieved at medium settings, due to a lower value pot, with a nice kick up to maximum to cut through in the no-load maximum position.
cheers
John
