My volume knob wont work properly

[mqzguitars]

[SIZE="4"]Hi, This is my first thread so sorry if its miss-categorized, But I just recently installed a pair of seymour duncan blackouts into my esp ltd ex-50, everything works great except the volume works more like an on off switch than an actual useful volume knob, the only change in volume happens from eighty to a hundred percent~ then from zero to eighty its just no sound is there a way i can fix this? any help will be greatly apreciated!
THANK YOU

[MetalManiac]

You might have toasted your volume potentiometer. Its not an infrequent occurence after a less than perfect soldering job. Ive done it a few times by overheating the pot. There are ways to test it, but I dont know. Might be a grounding issue though?

[ACH91332]

Buy a new pot. They're only a few bucks. Sounds like its wired fine but just isn't working how you want it to. Get a new one.

[ratherdashing]

Did you install the 25k volume pot that comes with the Blackouts?

[Funkfingers]

^ +1

Running active pickups through 250 or 500k pots will produce the "all/nothing" effect that you described.

Brand new SD Blackout pickups come supplied with pots and capacitors of the correct values to work well with the pickup circuitry. If you purchased your Blackouts pre-owned, you may need to mail order two 25k, 50k or 100k audio taper pots. A tone control will require a .047uF capacitor.

IMO, every component of the LTD EX-50 wiring loom should have been upgraded - except the bridge grounding wire.

[mqzguitars]

hi thanks for all of your replies, well I used 25k pots & I usually never have a problem with soldering, but since this is my first time installing active pickups i figured maybe i did something wrong, I checked everything recently & I followed the diagram perfectly, maybe i overheated the pot, Im gonna have to order a new one i guess.
thanks for all of your replies

[astrozombie]

To me, this is a very odd occurrence. I've just been getting good at soldering lately, and with my huge lack of knowledge, I've never ruined a pot this way. Therefore, I assume something else must be wrong. Now, I don't want to sound like a dick, but are you sure you used the right pots? It makes no difference that they are active pickups, soldering is the same procedure.

[mqzguitars]

To me, this is a very odd occurrence. I've just been getting good at soldering lately, and with my huge lack of knowledge, I've never ruined a pot this way. Therefore, I assume something else must be wrong. Now, I don't want to sound like a dick, but are you sure you used the right pots? It makes no difference that they are active pickups, soldering is the same procedure.

Yea im sure i used 25k pots, I ordered them online, although they are the solderless emg pots i doubt that makes a difference since the pots are designed for actice pickups,
maby im wrong & i cant use emg pots with duncans?

[astrozombie]

Yea im sure i used 25k pots, I ordered them online, although they are the solderless emg pots i doubt that makes a difference since the pots are designed for actice pickups,
maby im wrong & i cant use emg pots with duncans?

you should be able to use the same pots, yes...but solderless emg pots? i hadnt heard of em.

[Funkfingers]

Yea im sure i used 25k pots, I ordered them online,

Your wording tells me that you have trusted the mail order supplier to identify the components for you and not actually inspected them yourself. Imagine, if you will, that some warehouse sorter misread the paperwork for your order and packed 250s instead of 25s.

ratherdashing and I both pinpointed the same issue because we have either made the same mistake ourselves or repaired something for somebody else who had gotten it wrong. Your soldering is probably fine. The likeliest explanation is the incorrect pot value.

Check the chassis of the pot(s) for a stamped or inked on ID reference. For active guitar electronics, I would expect to find something like A25, B25 or A50. If you actually have A250, B250, A500 or B500, you have identified your problem.

[KX36]

I'd say either wrong resistance on the pot, wrong taper, a faulty pot or one you've damaged installing.

If you want to test the pot, it's easy enough with a multimeter which you should have if you're doing any wiring of anything anyway. take the pot out and test it with the multimeter set to DC resistance (ohms) as you turn it. at one extreme it should be 0, at the other it should be the rated value of the pot. linear pots will change steadily as you turn them, log ones should speed up or slow down as a sort of curve as you turn them. You want a log (audio) taper pot. If the value suddenly shoots up to infinity (often "1" on multimeters) and you're sure you've not let the probe of the multimeter come away from the pot, then the pot's broken.
It's a lot simpler than I make it sound, if you try it you'll get it.

"Solderless" electronics I've seen have always been kits with pre-soldered connectors that can clip together, but if you're not using the pot as part of a kit, I assume you have soldered it in some way?

Hope this helps.

[ratherdashing]

Yea im sure i used 25k pots, I ordered them online, although they are the solderless emg pots i doubt that makes a difference since the pots are designed for actice pickups,
maby im wrong & i cant use emg pots with duncans?

Well, the symptoms you described are EXACTLY what would happen if you used a 250k pot instead of 25k.

Hence the reason I asked, and why I still think this is the problem.

If you fried the pot, it would most likely let nothing through. It might also sound scratchy or have dead spots in the rotation.

No harm in trying new pots, but be 100% certain you're using the right ones.

I was under the impression that Blackouts come with 25k pots ... was that not the case with yours?

[mqzguitars]

Well, the symptoms you described are EXACTLY what would happen if you used a 250k pot instead of 25k.

Hence the reason I asked, and why I still think this is the problem.

If you fried the pot, it would most likely let nothing through. It might also sound scratchy or have dead spots in the rotation.

No harm in trying new pots, but be 100% certain you're using the right ones.

I was under the impression that Blackouts come with 25k pots ... was that not the case with yours?

I just checked my pots & they say "0071A25KB" so im thinking they're 25k pots, & yes the duncan blackouts come with pots but the guy who installed them in this guitar did a horrible job (he used a plumbers iron with plumbing solder) so I had to re-do the entire thing.
Also according to some research I did online, had I installed 250k pots in the guitar, it would have sounded terrible when I plugged into an amp, but in this case, the pickups sound great, its just the volume pot, Im going to buy a few different 25k pots to see what happens, thanks for all you help

[Agileguy_101]

Ithe guy who installed them in this guitar did a horrible job (he used a plumbers iron with plumbing solder)

Could be your problem there. Maybe he toasted your pot.

[KX36]

the guy who installed them in this guitar did a horrible job (he used a plumbers iron with plumbing solder) so I had to re-do the entire thing.

Hope you didn't actually pay for that, or at least got a refund! As you of course are aware, the plumbers ones are far too powerful, they're designed to keep a large mass of metal hot, not a little electrical connection.