Push/Pull Tone Pot

[metaljunkie]

I have a Washburn XS-4 bass with a push/pull tone pot that deactivates the active cicuitry. The tone pot is bad and needs replaced.It is a 500k pot but I do not know if is a audio taper or a linear taper pot. What is the best way to tell? The pot will turn completely around in circles and only works if you wiggle it in just the right spot. Thanks for any help.

[Newc]

Sounds like it's just going past the stops, which depending on the design could just be the disc inside is bent upwards away from the stops/contact plate. If you can see the disc inside the pot casing you might be able to bend the edge down.

[metaljunkie]

Thanks for the reply Newc, but even when it is in between the stops it is still noisey.

[beaner]

If you have an ohm meter, put the pot in the middle position and measure from the center lug to one of the side lugs. If you get something around 250k then it's linear. Actually, pots vary more than they should, so compare each side to see if they're roughly equivalent. An audio taper pot will have a much larger reading on one side than the other.


edit - okay, just re-read your post and it doesn't sound like you'll be able to do the meter check if the pot is spinning in circles. Is there another one on the bass you could check? If I were to take a wild guess, I'd say it's linear. Most of the time tone circuits are linear and the volume is always (hate to say always) audio taper.