Neat method for volume pot grounding

[fdesalvo]

I cannibalized my mahog/zebra strat to finish the purple tele, but ended up sending the tele body back to W for troubleshooting.  Now I have a show on Saturday and need a functional guitar, so I decided to clean up the wiring in the strat as I pieced it back together.  Came up with a simple way to ground to the volume pot using some spare bus wire I had lying about. 

 

[ezas]

That's about as cool, in a low tech way, as cool gets!

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Next time I make a bus I'm going to use a little piece of stripboard, I think.

A side effect of me making a wiring harness for my current project (pictured below) was that I only had one solder joint to the volume control. The wire comes from the switch, via the volume control, then back out to the stripboard (I used some heatshrink after the volume control to insulate its path to the board, but it's all one wire). There are a few strips on the board connected together, to ground them all, and then at the other end a wire comes out for the ground terminal on the jack.

So next time I may well just make a little board for the right number of ground points, and take all the wires straight to that. Then just stick it down with a self-adhesive pad or something.

(Complete description of harness: http://www.jumbleguitar.com/2012/04/29/electronics-progress-report/)

 

[fdesalvo]

Thanks, ezas!  It's about as simple as it gets and doesn't tax the pot as harshly.

Jumble that's badass!

 

[ezas]

I did something similar. I took the three ground wires from my single coils and soldered them into a ring terminator and then just soldered the ring to the back of the pot.

 

[fdesalvo]

You ever wonder if you even really need to ground to the back of the pot anyway?  The eyelet on the volume pot's ground lug is large enough to accommodate any number of 22ga leads and they are all being tied to the output jack's ground anyway. 

 

[keeper006]

Thanks for this, I can use it soon!  :icon_thumright:

 

[fdesalvo]

It is by the juice of Safu that grounds are made silent!  :laughing7:

Thanks for this, I can use it soon!  :icon_thumright:

 

[lafromla1]

I take a piece of thicker gauge copper wire and screw it on to the side to make a single grounding site.  Then I ground everything to that so if I have to change anything out, I am heating up the copper wire and not a pot.  Minimal soldering to the back of pots.

 

[Cagey]

You ever wonder if you even really need to ground to the back of the pot anyway?  The eyelet on the volume pot's ground lug is large enough to accommodate any number of 22ga leads and they are all being tied to the output jack's ground anyway.

No. You?

I use ground lugs...

Keeps me from deteriorating/destroying pots.

Where are you finding a ground eyelet on your pots? I've never seen one.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I think he just means the third lug, the one you connect to the jack ground. It's true that you can usually put loads of wires in there.

 

[StogiePatriot]

Just out of curiousity, where in the back of the pot is the best to solder (to avoid damaging for the stuff you 'have' to do.  Side; dead center with the middle lug inline or middle, or something else?

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Anywhere, but get it done quickly.

 

[Updown]

Just out of curiousity, where in the back of the pot is the best to solder (to avoid damaging for the stuff you 'have' to do. 

+1 to what Cagey said  :icon_thumright:

 

[StogiePatriot]

You ever wonder if you even really need to ground to the back of the pot anyway?  The eyelet on the volume pot's ground lug is large enough to accommodate any number of 22ga leads and they are all being tied to the output jack's ground anyway.

No. You?

I use ground lugs...

Keeps me from deteriorating/destroying pots.

Where are you finding a ground eyelet on your pots? I've never seen one.

+1 e27097235078203 to Cagey; awesome peep...
I took some pics of the lug in place for others to visualize - it is the cats arse IMHO. 

On a DiMarzio P/P 500K (and I assume all their pots) have a raised ring that allows the lug to snug up on the rabbited edge - very cool.  The Bourns pots that I have don't have this, but it still snugs onto the base with ease and precision.  It's now my belief that this was the designed grounding method but folks went nutso rigging; like when you forget the washers that are necessary because you just want to get it done.....  Oi..

Thanks again Cagey

 

[Dan025]

the big manufacturers probably didnt use them to save a penny. solder is cheaper than the grounding rings.

 

[Cagey]

the big manufacturers probably didnt use them to save a penny. solder is cheaper than the grounding rings.

No doubt. OEMs are notoriously penny-wise and pound-foolish. Plus, there are production issues. To be fair, it does take slightly longer to deal with the lugs than to just nail the back of the pot(s) with a 60 watt iron, and time is money.