Man I hate doing this but….wiring dilemma

[KaiserSoze]

Working on that strat in my profile.  Anyway, I'm adding a humbucker in the bridge position.  It should work according to a common Dimarzio diagram.  I know I have the color codes on the humbucker correct. I used a 500K pot for the second tone control.

The strange issue is that although I double check connections and solders and confirmed I have everything going to the right spot, I have tone controls that work intermittently.  i.e..neck position is on, the tone control works fine, a couple seconds later it doesn't.  Same with the bridge tone control.  It will not work and then suddenly work.  Its the same thing for all five switch positions.  Its frustrating.  Could this be a grounding thing somehow?  Help is appreciated. 

 

[mayfly]

You've got a cold solder joint somewhere.  Re-heat those connections with a bit of flux to ensure a tight joint.

Also - just for fun do you have some photos of the wiring?

 

[stratamania]

I was just going to post the same thing it sounds like a cold or dry joint.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Sweet, thank you.  I'll check out my solders joints again or just re do them.  Thank you for the direction.  I'll see about photos.  Its pretty straightforward wiring, I didn't split coils or anything.

 

[Cagey]

If you soldered your grounds to the backs of the pots, there's a good chance you warped/melted the resistive strips internally, especially if you used a lower-wattage soldering iron. That'll give you intermittent operation, if you get any at all. With a 30 watt or less iron, you have to heat the pot for too long to get it up to where solder will melt/stilck to the thing, which heats up the interior of the pot too high. If it doesn't wreck it immediately, it shortens it life. If you must solder to the pot body, you want a 40+ watt iron, preferably 50 or 60 watts. That way, you heat the metal up very quickly, add solder, and get off the thing before the internals get so hot that damage occurs.

You really wanna use ring lugs to ground your pots, as detailed here.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

But yeah, it's probably a cold solder joint.

I've never managed to fry a pot in 20 years of wiring.

 

[BigSteve22]

Another possibility is that you may have damaged that tone cap. If you used too hot an iron, or didn't use a heat sink on the lead being soldered, or left a low wattage iron in place for too long, depending on the type of cap your using, it's possible to damage the cap without totally frying it. This would manifest itself intermittently without touching the tone pot.

And to echo a point in Cagey's post, Solder lugs really are the best way to go.

But as Jumble says, damaging either component is pretty rare. A colder joint is a much more likely culprit.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Verdict….I cleaned up and resoldered two joints that were likely culprits and have no issue, so it was one of those.  I also ordered some of those lugs.  Too good to not have around. Thanks for the idea and I'll be more careful soldering. 

 

[KDC1956]

Solder Lugs and a 60 watt iron work's great thank's to Cagey.Make your hook ups go easy.