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Strange Pots....


ant7629

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Can anyone help me with this?

 

The two bridge volume and tone knobs on my Dot just don't seem right. This is very difficult to describe, but as they are turned, they seem to wobble. As if they are not centered correctly.

 

I have tightened the nuts holding the pots in, but it hasn't helped. I have also tried different knobs, but it still seem the same.

 

Could this be a fitting issue, or do i need new pots?

 

Thanks!!

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Tight enough... though it doesn't take much effort to pull them off compared to the neck pup controls and the ones on my Casino.

 

Hmm.....Well' date=' if they work, you could always back them with washers (no, not on the finish side) to assist in stability.

 

Worse case? Soldering iron, and about 25 bucks or so in hardware for Gibson pots....(Although on the tone side of it I think you'd probably have to replace the capacitors as well...and although there are lots of models, and the reading is something like .022, guitarists tend to be a bit superstitious about those for some reason...)

 

EDIT: I'm also stating this thing with the caps for a couple of reasons...there's plenty of models out there, and unfortunately I was stuck reading the Gibson forums for part of the weekend. (they have dozens and dozens of posts dedicated to nothing but,,,,caps. Seems sort of silly...)

 

From Guitar electronics:

 

[i']Most guitars and basses with passive pickups use between .01 and .1MFD (Microfarad) tone capacitors with .02 (or .022) and .05 (or .047) being the most common choices. The capacitor and tone pot are wired together to provide a variable low pass filter. This means when the filter is engaged (tone pot is turned) only the low frequencies pass to the output jack and the high frequencies are grounded out (cut) In this application, the capacitor value determines the "cutoff frequency" of the filter and the position of the tone pot determines how much the highs (everything above the cutoff frequency) will be reduced. So the rule is: Larger capacitors will have lower cutoff frequency and sound darker in the bass setting because a wider range of frequencies is being reduced. Smaller capacitors will have a higher cutoff frequency and sound brighter in the bass setting because only the ultra high frequencies are cut. For this reason, dark sounding guitars like Les Pauls with humbuckers typically use .02MFD (or .022MFD) capacitors to cut off less of the highs and guitars like Strats and Teles with single coils typically use .05MFD capacitors to allow more treble to be rolled off. Keep in mind that the capacitor value only affects the sound when the tone control is being used (pot in the bass setting) The tone capacitor value will have little to no effect on the sound when the tone pot is in the treble setting. [/i]

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This probably isn't your problem, but thought I would reply anyway just in case, since you can pull the knobs off easily.

Before I bought my strat, I had the store owner change the knobs. It had chrome knobs that used a set screw. I saw he had a set of the standard strat knobs in white (the "top hat" style I think its called). He put those on for me.

I notice that they too kind of wobbled a little bit, a bit loose fitting to. So I took the knobs off. The pots had the split shaft. I spread the shafts just a tiny bit and put the knobs back on. The fit is nice and snug now, with no wobble.

 

Also, make sure your knobs are on straight. On MY EPI LP, one of them was a bit crooked, so I wobbled a little bit when I turned it.

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ok, tried some knobs that I know are fine... problem remains. Another thing that I have noticed, is that the would knobs push all the way down to the wood with ease if I let them....

 

So do we think I need a change of pots?? Its not big problem as I plan to change the nut and pups pretty soon. Speaking of which, I was thinking SDs... good choice or should I go for the gibsons? The latter are more expensive over here...

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Thanks for the replies. CodeMonk, I will give that a go if all else fails.

 

I have tried to take some pictures to show the problem. They don't highlight it so well, but you can see as the pot is turned, the angle goes, well.... weird!

 

CIMG0529.jpg

 

CIMG0530.jpg

 

CIMG0528.jpg

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