Need help wiring tone pot and ground.

[Bmxbarspin724]

i have a teisco E-110. the tone pot went from all the way down to all the way up. there was no inbetween. so i decided to put in another pot. 500k was in there before and i replaced it with a 500k. the volume is 100k.

when i wired up everything up with the new pot, the volume worked but there was no tone control. it was like i didnt even have a tone pot. is there any reasons why this is?

secondly, there is a peice of wire that just extends into the body of the guitar. but it doesnt go to anything. the guitar isnt grounded at all and when i touch the strings, i become the ground. what should i do to ground it?

i attached pics and a rough drawing of it. (and i know that the soldering job sucks. im a noob solder-er and my iron sucks. haha.)

[Enzo]

Looks to me like the bare wire on the green cap is touching the body of the control it is passing over. And that would ground it. Move the bare wire away from the control body a little.

[Bmxbarspin724]

its not actually touching the other pot. should i make it touch the other pot? and what do i do with the other random wire? if i connect it to the bridge would that do anything?

[Sir Cuitous]

The capacitor lead should not touch the other pot. It's way too close for my taste - a small amount of movement of that cap and it will touch. You can test the tone control before re-installing the pickguard by connecting it to an amp and lightly tapping the pick-up poles with a metal object. You should be able to turn the tone control and hear the difference in the tone when you tap the pick-up.

"Ground" the wire from your jack to the bridge if it is not already. It sounds like it is already connected to the bridge which is why you become the ground when you touch the strings.

More importantly get a good soldering iron and practice your solder joints. Here's a link to a free download of a soldering guide. I learned a lot from this guide and my solder joints got a lot better fast.

[nopainkiller]

Here's the article that got me into guitar wiring and then other music electronics. After reading this, I haven't had any problems.

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/I-4000.html

There's a possibility that the tone pot is bad, if the tone cap isn't touching that back of the volume. Is the other end of the tone pot connected to ground? I usually ground it to the back of the tone pot from the second leg. I also can't see a thrid leg on that tone pot, though it doens't matter.

It shouldn't be soldering problems. Guitar wiring is so simple, I've never had problems with solder joints in guitars, and I used to be really really bad at soldering

[Sir Cuitous]

The NEW tone pot could be COMPLETELY bad and then you would get no tone control. That's easily checked.

The lugs on the tone pot are hard to see in the photo. The third leg appears to be bent and soldered to the middle. The first leg is grounded using a wire.

BMX... don't take this wrong - you already admitted to bad soldering - what you show in the photos would be a total do-over for me. In addition to the cap lead possibly shorting out when the pickguard is installed, the solder that joins the tone pot lug to the ground wire looks very suspect. For a new tone pot it sure looks beat. By contrast the soldering on the volume pot, which I believe was not touched, looks solid.

Guitar wiring is so simple that the only thing other than component failure is bad soldering.

[Bmxbarspin724]

the tone pot you see in the picture is the old one that works a little. it goes from high to low thats it. i installed the new one and then took it out because it didnt work at all.

the when i opened it up the lugs were together. i didnt bend them. and then i tried that on the new one and it didnt work.

i got the new tone pot from another crappy guitar. but i checked it first and it worked. so what else could it be?

[Sir Cuitous]

OK, so you have a pot that works. Wire it up again just the way your drawing shows and test it before you place the guard back on the guitar. If you take care with your soldering and keep the capacitor lead away from the pot or insulate it, you should have no problem. If you still have no tone control, post photos again here.

Remember that when you install the pickguard, the guitar cavity may press against your components and cause a fault. Also, guitar cavities with shielding or conductive paint can short the circuit.

It is common to see lugs bent to join to the back of the pot or to another lug, but it does not have to be done that way.

[Bmxbarspin724]

i didnt put the pickguard on the guitar when i tested it. it was facing up and the cap wasnt touching the volume pot. it still didnt work.

anybody have any other ideas?

[nopainkiller]

hmmm, there's something you're overlooking. If the pot isn't bad, it might be the cap. Is it the orignal that came with the guitar??

If all the grounds are connected to the wire that goes to the bridge, than the resistor should let some signal to ground when you roll the pot. You can turn down the volume, right?

I think you should put the old pot back in exactly how you have it wired now to see if it's a wiring problem, or if it's the pot. If you get a new pot, try linear taper instead. This would more likely solve your tone cut off problem. I wouldn't have replaced the pot in the first place. I would have changed the cap value. There are also other choices of tone controls, like a mid scoop or bass cut that are really better.

Another thought is that since pots are not always the exact value, you might have switched between two extremes or something. With the first pot barely denting the tone, and the next one not doing anything.

BTW, you did undo that third leg that's connected to the second leg, right?

Just keep the pickguard off and have it plugged into an amp while you work on it. Just try jigglin stuff around and see if anything happens. Have the tone pot turned all the way down, so you can hear it cut out. Touch the bare wire between the volume pot and the tone pot to see if you hear anything.

There should be a wire from either the third or the second lug on your volume pot to the second lug of your tone pot. The third leg of the tone pot is unused. Solder one of the caps leads to the second lug, and the other to the back of the pot with the third lug.