DynamicK Posted October 11 Posted October 11 Just bought a PJ bass and am having trouble with the bridge pickup. I tworks intermittently. I have resoldered a lot of the connections in the electrics... some of them were just a thread. Worst soldering I've ever seen. The pickup only works if i hold acrewdriver on one of the magnetic poles. Then it works for a bit. Does this mean that pickup is faulty or is it a connection problem in the wiring circuit. ? That's why I checked all the soldered connections on the pots. Any help appreciated. 1 Quote
Sean Posted October 11 Posted October 11 This is a process of elimination without being able to get hands-on. Run the soldering iron over the connections on the pickups. Just melt the solder and let it set again. Sometimes a dry joint develops. Are the pots OK? I fitted new CTS to a bass today and the "common" leg wasn't connected properly. This can happen with use too. Quote
DynamicK Posted October 11 Author Posted October 11 Thanks. I'll try that out. The pots seem to be Ok when the pickup decides to work. Quote
Sean Posted October 11 Posted October 11 When I have one of these mystery faults, I plug in and wiggle each little part or connection until I get closer to the fault. Methodical trial and error to find the bad connection is the way to go. Keep us up to date, it's probably simple to fix but difficult to isolate. 1 Quote
DynamicK Posted October 15 Author Posted October 15 So I did a bit of rewiring, soldering a bunch of new earth wires to the pots. Also soldered the bridge pickup again. Got sound out of the bass. I've ordered a new cap for the tone control as that also doesn't seem to be 100%. If I do want to replace the pots is the standard : CTS 250K ? Quote
Sean Posted October 15 Posted October 15 4 hours ago, DynamicK said: So I did a bit of rewiring, soldering a bunch of new earth wires to the pots. Also soldered the bridge pickup again. Got sound out of the bass. I've ordered a new cap for the tone control as that also doesn't seem to be 100%. If I do want to replace the pots is the standard : CTS 250K ? No. CTS pots might not be what you need. It's important to measure the diameter and length of the shafts. CTS are large and generally suitable for USA-made instruments. Bourns or Alpha are alternatives that are different sizes. I have a vintage high end Yamaha that recently had new pots and I went for Alpha because they were the same size as the originals. If I fitted CTS, I would have had to have reamed out the holes and that would be absolutely off limits on such a treasure. As usual, the answer to the question is, "it's depends". Quote
DynamicK Posted October 15 Author Posted October 15 (edited) Thanks. It's an Ibanez RB 830, so probably the same as the Yamaha Who sells the Alpha / Bourns ? Edited October 15 by DynamicK Quote
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