[GuyB]

What can cause a tone pot to stop working ? When it is in the "0" position (the bassy side), the sound is bassy but when I turn it to the right, for more treble, the sound goes more "trebly", let's say to the "1" position and then stays unchange up to the end.

 

[greco]

Interesting thread!

Did this just start happening spontaneously or were you doing some mods and the above happened as a result?

 

[laristotle]

Capacitor's shot?

 

[Mark Brown]

Capacitor's shot?

Then it would likely function as a volume pot.

Failing wiper arm, failing resistance strip??

Where pots are concerned, if deoxit doesn't fix it just put in a new one. Even earning minimum wage the 20 minutes it takes to figure it out is still more expensive than a new pot

 

[greco]

Capacitor's shot?

Pot rot?

 

[Mark Brown]

Pot rot?

I think not

Sorry, it was the only thing I could think of that rhymes. I do probably agree with you.

 

[Paul Running]

What device is the tone pot in?
Does the pot make a scratchy sound when you turn it?

 

[greco]

What device is the tone pot in?

Excellent question as we are all assuming the tone pot is in a guitar.

 

[gtrguy]

Was the tone pot loose at all? Wires can get twisted when that happens and maybe short.

 

[mhammer]

I think we need to know what form of tone circuit is being discussed.

 

[Paul Running]

Excellent question as we are all assuming the tone pot is in a guitar.

The reason I ask because if it is in an amp, there could be DC leakage from a coupling cap, if so, I seen some oddities with pots with a leaky cap.

 

[GuyB]

It happened after a change of the volume pot... that was'nt working ! The tech told me that he put a "stronger" pot (I don't know what he meant). I almost always play with the volume pot at maximum. Now, after posting this post, and remembering some readings on the subject, I lowered the volume pot by half and then the tone started to act... like a volume pot ! I suspect that the tech that changed the volume pot a couple of month ago did a mess.

For the questions you asked :
Paul Running : no the pot is not scratchy
gtrguy : no the tone pot is not loose
greco : like I said, I had a tech change the volume pot a couple of months ago but I did not use that guitar a lot since so I took concern of this just a few days ago.

Thanks to all

 

[GuyB]

mhammer and Paul Running posted while I was writing my answer.

For Paul : ils a guitar ! And for mhammer the guitar is a Godin Flat Five X. I emailed Godin yesterday and they sent me the diagram (a "schema de câblage" in french, sorry I don't know the words in english)

 

[knight_yyz]

almost sounds like an audio taper pot has been wired backward so the taper is backward. Which would make things sound very weird

 

[Paul Running]

Is there a part number on the pot to check it's type: log, anti-log or linear?

 

[GuyB]

I'll try to check the type tomorrow.

 

[knight_yyz]

it might say 500k but also look for either an A or B or C. A is audio taper, B is Linear and C is reverse audio. A linear taper can be wired backward but the 0 and 10 will be reversed, but an audio taper has two versions because of the sweep. So you can't wire an audio taper pot backward or it will sound completely wrong.

 

[JBFairthorne]

almost sounds like an audio taper pot has been wired backward so the taper is backward. Which would make things sound very weird

As a lefty, I get this all the time. For example the brand new AVII ‘57 Strat I just bought has righty taper pots wired backwards for lefty sweep. The problem is, the hump is in the wrong place. It gets really loud from 1-4 then hardly any noticeable difference up to 10. Practically unusable. As a matter of course, one of the first things I do is rewire them back to righty sweep. The added bonus the numbers on the knobs, 1 is now 1 and 10 is 10 instead of being backwards. They don’t make lefty numbered knobs.

 

[knight_yyz]

@JBFairthorne , so the knobs rotate backward but the sound is correct after swapping lugs? Do you swap the volume too so they all rotate the same way?

 

[JBFairthorne]

From the factory, the knobs turn the wrong way in relation to volume/tone numbers and the hump is at the lower end of the sweep. Swap the lugs back to (probably what you’re used to seeing) and everything looks and works as it should.