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Pot or wiring?

EagleMoon

EagleMoon

Jul 13, 2007
12,818
1,305
Phoenix, Arizona
#1
I just got a 1990 Peavey Foundation that has a bit of an odd problem. It has two volumes and a tone knob. When I have both pickups on full and I turn the front pickup down a hair, it cuts in and out as I turn it. It doesn't do it at all if I turn the bridge pickup off, only when both pickups are on. Would this be likely to be the pot going bad or the wiring?
 
#3
EagleMoon said:
I just got a 1990 Peavey Foundation that has a bit of an odd problem. It has two volumes and a tone knob. When I have both pickups on full and I turn the front pickup down a hair, it cuts in and out as I turn it. It doesn't do it at all if I turn the bridge pickup off, only when both pickups are on. Would this be likely to be the pot going bad or the wiring?
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like one of the pickups has the connection reversed.
 
#7
Here are a couple of pictures of the wiring... can anyone tell what's wrong with it?

Foudationwiring.gif

Foundationwiring2.gif
 
#8
The wiring looks ok to me. The bare wire should go to the same jack terminal, (sleeve) as the black. It must be or it wouldn't be working at all, ha ha. I think it must be a problem with your pots. If you have a tester, you can clip one probe to the centre of each pot (one at a time) and the high side (where the white wire is soldered) and see if there are big drops in resistance, rather than a smooth transition as you turn the pot from one stop to the other. For the tone pot use the centre and terminal the capacitor is soldered to. Then you will know for sure. I'm not very experienced at this and I my not have the terminology right, but think I have the right idea here. I wonder, what is the purpose the small capacitor between the two terminals on the volume pots?
 
#10
EagleMoon said:
Here are a couple of pictures of the wiring... can anyone tell what's wrong with it?

Foudationwiring.gif

Foundationwiring2.gif
Click to expand...

The diagram above your pictures shows no condensator on the middle
(volume) pot. My Jazz bass hasn't got one there. Sometimes condensators are placed between the volume, tonepot and switch
(to add some reverb/depth). But I've never seen one on a volumepot
of a Jazz bass. Fenders mostly have one condensator on a single tonepot.
So you could try to connect your volumepot without condensator, the way it's shown in the diagram, before putting new pots in.
 
#13
Craig_S said:
Condensator?
Click to expand...

Right, if you can read microfarads (μF or MFD), nanofarads (nF) or picofarads on the "transistor", it's a capacitator.
The ones that have 0.2k 0.047k or 0.(0)33k as value are soldered on the tonepot and create the character of your tone in combination with the pot.
The farad ones are used to add depth and dynamic response. Those
are soldered between a switch and the volume+tonepot+capacitator.

There are sites that can explain this in more detail without the use of
archaic terminology.
 
#14
UPDATE:

Finally got my new pots in the mail from Stew Mac. Replaced them last night and what a difference! Other than the tone pot cutting out all volume when it's turned all the way down :) it sounds much better. I did take off the capacitor that was on the second volume pot like Stempelloos suggested. It seems to be fine without it.
 

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