Pot Upgrades?

Kenny_D

Where would I go about upgrading guitar pots. Want to upgrade from 250 to 500k pots. What are good quality pots and is it a job I could take on myself? How much would it cost to get it done?

IamMetaldave

You would probably pick them up around town.

Or you can order from here

It's not a very hard job changing pots, but take note of what points to re solder to.

Also, don't use a very powerful iron as you can over heat them and destroy them. A 25 watt iron would be ample.

The guy, Kev I think his name is who used to work in instrumental set up a repair place on exchequer st beside Dunnes, go in and ask him about prices, I'd imagine somewhere around 60 is what you'll pay..

Eoin Madsen

CTS pots are popular in guitars. But if you're not using knobs that need a knurled spline, I'd suggest some Alphas - they feel nicer when they turn.

Going from 250 to 500 isn't so much an upgrade as just a change. It sort depends on the pickups and sound you're going for.

With regards to irons... from my own experience, I'd actually suggest the opposite - use a higher watt if you're doing it yourself. With the lower watt iron the area you're soldering onto heats much slower which makes for a greater likelyhood of a bad joint and a greater chance of melting the component as you're heating the joint. While you can obviously destroy a component quicker with a hotter iron, a 50 watt vs. a 25 would actually allow you to make the solder joint much faster and result in far less heat dissipating into the rest of the component. I've destroyed a few pots trying to get wire to stick properly with my 25 watt, but I've never destroyed a component with my 50 watt. I'd put a heat sink between the iron and the cap in either case anyway.

Kenny_D

Cheers Eoin. I'm picking up a 72 Tele Deluxe and apparently the 250k pot used for the neck pickup gives a muddy sound on the humbucker (The original 72 tele deluxe used higher capacity pots). Recommended upgrade is to 500k pots or 1mOhm pots