Volume issue

[lafromla1]

I was playing the other night and noticed the following on my Tele.  In position 1 (neck pup only), when I turned the volume down, it would lower properly until I got it nearly all the way down to 1. When I got to 0, it would act as if it was on 11+, just very loud and out of control.  The volume knob worked perfect on positions 2 and 3.  I checked the wiring and everything is solid.  It has never done this before the other night.  Any suggestions???

 

[AutoBat]

Sounds like your pot is dying, time for a new one.  Cagey says that solderling lugs will extend the life of pots because soldering to the back of them can damage the internal bits when heated up.
Get yourself a new pot & a soldering lug.

 

[Cagey]

What kind of control setup does this Tele have? Is it the traditional 1 vol, 1 tone, 1 switch, or something else?

Reason I ask is that if there's only one volume pot and it's failed, it should be failed no matter what pickup combination you select. But, it you have two volume pots, then one could fail and symptoms would only appear when the pickup that pot controlled was selected in isolation. The other selections would be fine because you're either only selecting the good pot or putting both pots in parallel.

And yes, overheating pots by soldering to their housings is a good way to fail them at a young age, if not immediately. The internal resistive strip is just plastic, and won't take a great deal of abuse.

 

[lafromla1]

It's the typical 1 volume, 1 tone, 3 way switch.  I'm going to my local tomorrow to have my VIP nut filed, so I'll pick up a new pot tomorrow.

One thing, I have 250k pots for both tone and volume. Can I put a 500k pot on the volume and keep the tone at 250k?

 

[rockskate4x]

It shouldn't be a problem to have pots with different values, but I say if you're opening up the guitar, you might as will gut it and do 500k for volume and tone and .022 for the cap. Pots and caps are cheap, and it'll do you good.

 

[Cagey]

I agree. 250K pots are too much load, and anything more than .022μf is too much capacity. Swap up to 500K pots, and down to a .022μf cap. It's $11 worth of parts.

 

[lafromla1]

I agree. 250K pots are too much load, and anything more than .022μf is too much capacity. Swap up to 500K pots, and down to a .022μf cap. It's $11 worth of parts.

I have a brand new .022μf capacitor, so I'll pick up two 500k pots tomorrow.

Thanks guys...

 

[pabloman]

Check the lugs on your switch. I've seen the lugs stick up and bottom out against the body and cause problems like shorts and what not. You would think it would manifest upon installation since the parts are stationary but the times I've seen it developed over time.

 

[stubhead]

I agree. 250K pots are too much load, and anything more than .022μf is too much capacity. Swap up to 500K pots, and down to a .022μf cap. It's $11 worth of parts.

Me too. or three? Anyone who says "tone controls are useless, they make my guitar sound like XXXX" has too much resistance in the circuit. You can learn to love your tone control if you turn it into something with a useful range, and if you learn to set up your amp with the tone and volume at 7 or so. Then the knobs do good things, if you leave your guitar at 10 and 10 to set your amp the knobs can do nothing but diminish your tone and volume. That's like a "duh" statement, but it's still surprisingly rare to see people who understand this.

There is absolutely NO need for a boost pedal if your amp is loud enough to start with, and has a preamp with some compression that kicks in when it's overdriven (ALL tube amps can do this, some better than others).  Just use the knobs on the guitar! Jeff Beck's starting point is a Marshall with the volume and treble set to 10, and his guitar set to 0 and 0. Of course, he has spent time (5 decades or so) practicing what the knobs DO. Van Halen used to be the volume knob master, till his unfortunate encounters with substances.

Every one of this guy's articles are worth reading, but this one's about cap values:

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Jun/Improving_Tone_Control_Effectiveness.aspx

Oh yeah, this one too:

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Jul/Diagnosing_Volume_Pots.aspx

 

[swarfrat]

Check your grounds. Intermittent ground connections can behave in bizarre ways. Every time I've had volume pots do absolutely crazy things it's been a bad or unconnected ground.

 

[TroubledTreble]

It's the pickups! They don't like being turned all the way down. They are breaking through the pot in revolt! :laughing11:

It sounds like the pot is bad. I recently had a pot that got pushed a little to hard when the knob was put on and it was starting to come apart. Other than some of the other mentioned issues I can only think of this.

Oh, has the pot ever been used for something else?

 

[GearBoxTy]

To piggy back "Volume issue"...

I wired the output jack hot to the middle lug of my Strat build volume pot and the output jack ground to the grounded lug.  The Bridge ground is going to my bottom Tone control.

The switch works, the Tone controls work, but the Volume control has no effect; it is always on.

What have I done wrong?

If I've destroyed the Volume pot due to overheating it, can I use a 500k pot for Volume and 250k pots for Tones?  I've got three Dimarzio stacked humbucker "single coils".

 

[Cagey]

Assuming the rest of the wiring is correct, it sounds like the volume pot may be open. It's easy enough to check, if you have a multimeter. Just measure across the two outside lugs. It should read within 20% of the marked value. If not, it's open. If it looks like it's there, then disconnect whatever's on the center lug and measure from there to either side. The total should be what you read from the two outside lugs. If not, it's open.