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I can find 250K blender pots. I have not been able to locate 500K blender pots. Will it make a difference in the sound if I use one or the other? Before someone suggests it ... I wish I could pull off just making it. But I keep doing something wrong. I scrape the trace end, but when I reassemble the pots it is totally dead. I have done something I do not see and it no longer works at all.
Dale
Dale, I'm almost positive (after doing my own search for 1 meg pots) that CTS makes a 500K blender. Check with JMI, because I think AllParts carries this part.
This is not the usual bass guitar or acoustic/electric blender pot. At Allparts it is part number EP_0386-000. Will one of these work for the this application?
http://www.fralinpickups.com/images/blendschem2.jpg
I was thinking maybe this Blender at Callaham might work. It indicates it is a "true no load." http://www.callahamguitars.com/ it is under the strat parts section.
Dale
Blender Pot at
I know that you're not going for the "center detent" blend pot (like the one on my American Precision Deluxe), but rather the "long sweep/on-or-off" kind of blender (like the one in my Zencaster). That Fralin diagram is exactly the one I used wiring my guitar, so I'm sure the one they sell is the right type.
In the Fralin diagram (it's below with my altered tone pot wiring), the "blender" pot is the existing tone pot being use as a resistive switch.
http://www.lilypix.com/photos/data/7...344_p38899.jpg
I understand the resistive switch idea, but as I understand it the pot has an "off" location on the sweep. As I am using buckers the 250K would result in a darker tone as well would it not? I am assuming that is why I needed a 500K or higher pot.
Gravity, If there is a 500K single sweep pot there with the "off" on it I was not able to find it. I probably just looked in the wrong place. It looks to me like there is really no need for a resister in the path at all. The Deluxe Players Strat, for example, just as the on/off switch. At least that is how it looks int he wiring diagram at Fender. It seems to jut run the bridge into the second tone pot. In that case I am not so sure I see a need for me to "blend" it really. I would just play it wide open anyway I suspect. So an on/off like that is what I was looking for, only with a swithc that fit nicely in a 3/8" hole. I suppose if I hit a "nice" looking washer or 2 a 1/4" switch could work.
I appreciate everyones efforts here so far. I will keep looking.
Dale
My experience has been that the blender is cooler than an on-off switch bcause the best neck/bridge tones (on MY guitar, that is) are with one or the other dialed in about 50%. Sweet. In fact, I'm playing a lead line for a jingle project right now today... Neck pup with the bridge dialed around 50%, and it's lovely. (These are single coils, BTW.)
You can use the existing tone pot unmodified, but there will always be just a bit of bleed from either the bridge or neck pickup. The only reason to cut the carbon trace is to kill the bleed.
It doesn't really need an off position, but if you want to make sure that the pot isn't loading down the pickups use a 500K pot with a on- off switch in it. (like a push-pull type).