Electrical Demons

The last two days I've spent chasing electrical demons. So far, only one of my projects has been with any electrical issues.

The fretless is complete and the piezo pickup is gone. It never did work correctly and then it stopped altogether. I found a loose wire and when I resoldered it where it belongs; the batteries started to get real hot. Not good. So I disconnected it from the circuit for good.

I got the control pot I needed for my red bass yesterday. Wired it up without a hitch. This bass, my first build from spare parts has been the easiest. I finished wiring this one in the midst of the nightmare of the strat bass.

I first put everything together Thursday evening. Tried it out, nothing. I spent eight hours with it on Friday. I first check circuits with a volt meter. Individual circuits were complete but I did not have continuation throughout the whole circuit.

I took everything apart. I started from the jack and resoldered every connection. I wired in one pickup at a time. The first was fine, the second one did not work initially. I first swapped pickups to be sure there wasn't a problem with a pickup.

After resoldering it again and other voodoo, I got it to work; intermittently and poorly. When it would work, the other pickup would have to be turned on. I've wired this I've deduced that I have a bad control pot.

I'm going to contact EMG and see how they will handle it. Being that these components were new in the box and this is my third project all using their products, I think they should send me the new control for free, otherwise they sell it for $8.