odd behaviour of a tonepot, without a cap/ground

[black_labb]

hi guys, i have just finished a guitar build. when i was wiring it up i couldnt find the the cap for the tonepot, so i left it out with intentions of putting it back in when i ground the strings. i have grounded the strings last night, but forgot to do the tone pot cap. its wired without the third connection connected (the one that would be connected to grounded through the cap). even without this there, it works like a tone pot should. how is this? its deffinately noticeable, maybe not quite as effective as a regular tone pot, but atleast half as effective.

why is this? is the resistor in the (1meg) pot slightly inductive? its not a wire wound pot. is there some capacitance between the resistance and the pot casing which has been grounded? has anyone ever encountered this before?

i might just leave it out, as it is quite effective, and can get brighter than most (maybe the 1m pot would be the same if wired correctly)

ill be recording (badly with my mp3) the guitar and 2 amps ive made as soon as i fix 1 channel on a amp i finished yesterday

[salvarsan]

hi guys, i have just finished a guitar build. when i was wiring it up i couldnt find the the cap for the tonepot, so i left it out ...

even without this there, it works like a tone pot should. how is this? its deffinately noticeable, maybe not quite as effective as a regular tone pot, but atleast half as effective.

The pickup coil and the cable have enough capacitance to roll off the treble. If you use some frou-frou low capacitance cable, the effect lessens.

[black_labb]

The pickup coil and the cable have enough capacitance to roll off the treble. If you use some frou-frou low capacitance cable, the effect lessens.

i know what you are saying, but i can literally adjust the tone, via the tone pot, without a cap or connection to ground. i cant quite get it to the real fuzzy or jazz melowness (they are essentially strat single coils ignoring a couple little changes so they shouldnt get there anyway), but i can get pretty close, and just adjusting the pot a tiny bit gives an audiable difference.

[Stan H]

Could be a defective pot...

[black_labb]

Could be a defective pot...

thats my guess, somehow it must have alot of capacitance between the resistance and the casing. im going to leave it as it does what it needs to.

[SkinnyWire]

hi guys, i have just finished a guitar build. when i was wiring it up i couldnt find the the cap for the tonepot, so i left it out with intentions of putting it back in when i ground the strings. i have grounded the strings last night, but forgot to do the tone pot cap. its wired without the third connection connected (the one that would be connected to grounded through the cap). even without this there, it works like a tone pot should. how is this? its deffinately noticeable, maybe not quite as effective as a regular tone pot, but atleast half as effective.

why is this? is the resistor in the (1meg) pot slightly inductive? its not a wire wound pot. is there some capacitance between the resistance and the pot casing which has been grounded? has anyone ever encountered this before?

i might just leave it out, as it is quite effective, and can get brighter than most (maybe the 1m pot would be the same if wired correctly)

ill be recording (badly with my mp3) the guitar and 2 amps ive made as soon as i fix 1 channel on a amp i finished yesterday

A schematic would be helpful ... both to us and yourself. Sketch out the wiring to "simplify" looking at it. Maybe somehow it's in series with your volume pot and you're hearing an effect there? Have to see the circuit.

[black_labb]

A schematic would be helpful ... both to us and yourself. Sketch out the wiring to "simplify" looking at it. Maybe somehow it's in series with your volume pot and you're hearing an effect there? Have to see the circuit.

the volume feeds into the tone then to the output, so they are in series. ill upload a drawing later if your interested. its acting as a variable resistance in series with the vol pot.

[PlayItAll]

Certainly strange. I might just leave it as well. I've modded my strat so many times in unorthodox ways and ended up liking it/ leaving it for long periods of time.

If it works, it works. :-)

Ed

[David Schwab]

the volume feeds into the tone then to the output, so they are in series. ill upload a drawing later if your interested. its acting as a variable resistance in series with the vol pot.

The tone control shouldn't have any resistance in series with the output. The resistance is in series with the cap.

If you have it wired up with the resistance in series, than that's why you are hearing a change in tone.

[SkinnyWire]

The tone control shouldn't have any resistance in series with the output. The resistance is in series with the cap.

If you have it wired up with the resistance in series, than that's why you are hearing a change in tone.

That's what I was thinking.

[black_labb]

thanks for explaining guys. might fix it when i shield the cavities.