Wah, new pot, loud scratching with signal.

[enigmur]

Hey all,

I installed one of the Smallbear BlackBear ICAR pots into my V847, and Im getting a loud rustling sound when I wah. It doesnt make any noise at all if I move the pedal, but only if I play a note and wah it.
Its not the normal scratchy pot because it only does it with signal.

Any ideas what this might be? I have several other mods, but it didnt make noise with my Hot Potz from what I remember.

Thanks!

[JasonG]

My guess is that you reversed some wires on the pot. 

[enigmur]

I thought I may have too, do you know which wire should go to which tab?

[Shepherd]

Practice amps can disguise the scratchiness.  Try the Hot Potz again in your main rig. 

Who knows? Maybe that scratchiness was already there in the circuit and the fidelity of the ICAR reveals it.

[enigmur]

Its definately wired properly. I dont really have a practice rig, I just use my 50w amp.

What could cause that kind of sound to happen? As far as I can tell, all my connections are OK. Could it be a faulty cap or the wrong kind of transistor or something?

[Mich P]

I have one of the black bear(but from banzai but i think
there from the same origine) and it's sratchy too
i open it to see inside and there is a grease
in and on the carbon side so i removed all of it
and it's dead quiet now !
Mich P.

[larryprune]

I had a similar problem with an ICAR from Small Bear.   I was also getting intermittently loss of signal all together.  I thought the pot was bad, because of course there would nothing wrong with my SKILLZ, right?  Wrong.  I found i could get it to go out and com back from tapping on one of the pot lugs with a screwdriver.  So I re-flowed the solder, and noticed tension the wire was making it change position as the solder hardened.  So, I used my helping hands to hold the wire in the proper position as re-soldered the connection.  Works like a charm now.   So....   You may want to check and make sure you don't have any cold solder joints on the pot itself.   Maybe just resolder all of them to be safe.

[smallbearelec]

The scratchiness is a known issue in All of the variants of this control: Blacktop, ProPot, Black Bear, etc. If you take the pot apart and wash all the lubricant out with Deoxit or similar, the scratchiness goes away permanently.

I have placed another factory order for these controls, and the maker has agreed to do the first hundred without lubricant. If they are quiet and still hold up well, I will get the rest of the run made the same way.

SD

[joegagan]

wow, a third base hit AGAIN from steve!

cool, hope it works!

[enigmur]

Hey wow thanks for that guys, I'm just glad theres a way around it because the pot does sound brilliant, it has an amazing sweep compared to the hot potz 2 which I had in there.

I'll have a look at it, but I'll ask here in case I get stuck, is there a trick to removing the black dust cap on the pot?

Thanks again!

[ayayay!]

wow, a third base hit AGAIN from steve!

cool, hope it works!

No kidding!  Thanks Steve.  You are an advocate for us all.  And, I'm sure you wouldn't mind never seeing those pots come back to you again once purchased, right?       Where would we be without you?

[CodeMonk]

I have this old Thomas Organ Cry Baby (bought it off a friend for $25).
It was really scratchy. I took the pot out, took it apart, and liberally sprayed it with contact cleaner, turning the pot back and forth as I sprayed it.
Its perfectly quiet now.

[enigmur]

It worked wonders, cheers steve!

[R.G.]

Pots in wah and volume pedals simply must be viewed as expendables. No matter how much care you take and cleaning you do, there will come a day when it can't be made decent sounding again.

The solution is to treat these pots as you would tubes. You may like the ones you have, but if you have any smarts at all, you'll buy a spare before you need it.

[Mark Hammer]

I will still put in a plug for this Stabilant stuff in wah and other heavy-use pots.

[spaceace76]

I had a similar problem, and after cleaning everything out I noticed a popping sound. Also, the pot only goes all treble or all bass. I re-lubed and cleaned it several times to no avail. The pot was quiet and worked great when I first got it, but developed the scratching and popping after a few weeks. What can I do to fix this?

[John Lyons]

I will still put in a plug for this Stabilant stuff in wah and other heavy-use pots.

MArk
I know about Stabilant but where dop you get it?
Of course you are in Canada and I'm in the US....
I think I remember someone saying that better auto parts stores had a type that they use for contacts between door and body for switch mechanisms in high impact/humidity/wear areas.

Thanks

John