Potentiometer question.

J.D.ROOST

Junior Member
Messages
32
I am building a Soloist S.S.H. body right now with only two control holes (picked it up used). I hardly ever fuss with a tone knob on the bridge humbucker...so I was just going to run a single 250k tone control for the singles and skip the tone control on the humbucker. If I am going to run it this way my volume pot should be a 250k not a 500k correct? I will probably be using a spare super switch (just because I have a nice new Kaish 5 way ss) so am open to opinions on a better way to do things. I do not want to drill into a finished flamed top so adding a 3rd hole is a no go for me.
 
TBurst Std said:
You referenced never using the tone pot on a HB.  Do you ever use one on a SC?
Not "never" but it's not super important.
When it's in bridge position it's usually for rocker tunes and I don't need any adjustments aside from volume.
I spend more time on singles and yes I use the tone pot.
 
Use a 500K volume pot in HSS otherwise the humbucker could get muddy. If you want the single coils to see 250K when they are selected a resistor to ground can be used in those positions to do that.

It also would be easy enough instead of having a master tone to skip the tone for the humbucker and wire from the neck and middle positions of the switch to a tone control for those pickups.

 
I think I need to read up on how the two pots interact with each other.
I have always assumed they were like parallel resistors (ie. a 500k vol. and 500k tone pots were actually looking like 250k at the output to the pickup...250k & 250k =125k ect). Hence me thinking a 250k with no tone pot to the bucker was the right call.

Sounds like running a 500k and 250k with load resistors might be the way to go as I can mess with the value of that resistor a bit to fine tune.
Appreciate the help.
 
It all depends on what you want to hear in the end.
 
Since you mentioned you will forgo the bridge tone control, I don't see any problem using a 250k Volume control.  It will sound the same when the volume is set to 10/10ths.  Slightly improved treble loss with the 250k when the volume is rolled back.    I would not expect any issues.
 
J.D.ROOST said:
I am building a Soloist S.S.H. body right now with only two control holes (picked it up used). I hardly ever fuss with a tone knob on the bridge humbucker...so I was just going to run a single 250k tone control for the singles and skip the tone control on the humbucker. If I am going to run it this way my volume pot should be a 250k not a 500k correct? I will probably be using a spare super switch (just because I have a nice new Kaish 5 way ss) so am open to opinions on a better way to do things. I do not want to drill into a finished flamed top so adding a 3rd hole is a no go for me.

I would recommend a 500kohm volume pot and 250kohm tone pot in this case.  The singles might be brighter, but a) I don't find this kind of brightness to usually be undesirable, and b) if you note that it is a problem, you could add a small resistor and capacitor to ground from the single coils.  Those parts should only cost you a couple bucks, and won't take up much space in the control cavity, but the downside is that they might make the cavity a bit more messy inside.  Hopefully you won't need them, but if you do, it's a pretty straightforward modification.
 
why not split diff and use a 300k or 330k pot? theyre not too hard to find. maybe a cool biz would be willing to measure a few and send u ones that are on the high side of the usual 20% tolerence like a 350k. u never know

 
BroccoliRob said:
why not split diff and use a 300k or 330k pot? theyre not too hard to find. maybe a cool biz would be willing to measure a few and send u ones that are on the high side of the usual 20% tolerence like a 350k. u never know

Hey Rob - where do you find those 300k / 330k pots?  In my neck of the woods we can only reliably get 250k and 500k.

wheredoyagetum?
 
"wheredoyagetum?"
Cool, is that Canadian slang? In the south of the US they love terms like that. Such as "Yon'tto" Used in situations such as, "I'm goin' to WalMart, Yon'tto". Roughly translates as "Do you want to?...... :icon_thumright:
 
Did a 500/300 all wired for tone with a Little 59 neck, Texas special middle, Custom 5 and ran a resistor to taste for the middle (Tex. Special). Worked out great.
 
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