Crackling tone pot - dust unlikely

[waldemar]

Hi all.

I have a weird issue on a couple of my basses. I've soldered the electrics myself. Although I'm no ace solderer, it's not a bad job and the audio signal is as clean as on any of my other basses. When I change my electrics I always use new, decent quality pots.

The weird thing is, the tone pot crackles a bit when sweeping through the range, but only when I've plucked a string and a note is sounding. If the strings aren't vibrating and generating a signal then the pot doesn't crackle at all. This is true regardless of whether I've got my fingers on the strings or not, so I'm assuming that it's not a ground issue.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is that maybe I've overheated the pot when soldering the wires to the outside of the pot casing. The cases do end up getting very hot, although I can't see any way around this as soldering requires the components to be hot (not just the solder) for the soldered joint to be any good.

Any ideas? Any tips for soldering onto the pot casings?

Ta!

[Edit for typos]

Edited December 3, 2011 by waldemar

[Ou7shined]

Rough up the surface of the pot you are about to solder and it should take in seconds.

As for the scratchy but only while playing problem, I haven't a scooby.... maybe you should just not do it.

[waldemar]

Ah yeah. That makes a bit of sense.

Yeah, the crackle is perplexing. Luckily I never have the need to adjust my tone midway through a tune. Just wondered what it could be...

Cheers man.

w./

[Blademan_98]

That does sound like the pot is damaged.

To check, take a new pot and instead of soldering the earth, use a crimp terminal.

Solder the other joints and try the bass (without assembling the pot etc).

If it still does it then the problem lays else where.

[waldemar]

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if something burnt inside when I superheated it... Hopefully roughing up the pots before soldering should prevent this happening again...

Ta!

w./

[icastle]

+1 for roughing up the outside of the pot case where you are going to solder - they're either laquer coated or oxidised and the solder just won't flow nicely and you'll just end up with a blob of solder sat on a layer of rosin - not a very reliable connection...

Superheating a pot can indeed damage it, the wiper assembly generally contains parts made from nylon and overheating it can make it deform - then the wiper doesn't make contact with the track adequately.