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Volume Knobs on transducer wiring? Need help or some plans.

My new box will have a peizo transducer in it, and I wanted to wire in a volume knob, but I am not sure on the wiring...I tried to hook it up the other day, and I would turn it up and get a ton of feed back and sound, then I would turn it down and still get sound with less feed back.....cool effect, but not was i was looking for....need help on this one.

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Permalink Reply by Rocky7 on September 10, 2010 at 3:13pm

Why is it so complicated? Why can't I just run the hot wire through two lugs of the pot, just adding it in the circuit?
c# merle said:

seems we've lost all ted's wiring diagrams, so heres the piezo with volume control

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Permalink Reply by Rocky7 on September 11, 2010 at 9:25am

I've wired more than a few guitars up before by using diagrams. I was just wondering why the third lug has to be grounded to the pots' case. What would happen if I didn't?

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on September 11, 2010 at 9:43am

Wire it up that way and see what happens. The worst thing is that it has issues and you rewire it.

Rocky7 said:

I've wired more than a few guitars up before by using diagrams. I was just wondering why the third lug has to be grounded to the pots' case. What would happen if I didn't?

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Permalink Reply by Rocky7 on September 11, 2010 at 10:35am

Beautifully explained!

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Dubman on November 27, 2010 at 10:12pm

So in the volume only schematic, maximum volume is independant of pot value? My 100K pot controlling two piezos in parallel should play as loud as if I used a 1/2 meg pot?

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Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on November 28, 2010 at 3:32am

Yes. The higher resistance rated pots give you more range of adjustment or more gradual change. Full volume = 0 ohms. 0 Resistance is still 0 resistance, no matter the rating.
The other part of the pot rating question is linear or audio taper. A linear taper pot will have less effect at one end of the volume range than the other. Audio taper pots compensate for this.
Hope that clarifies thing somewhat.

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Permalink Reply by rockcity on November 28, 2010 at 3:56am

Nice to have this re-posted.

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on July 28, 2011 at 12:37pm

Thank you for the diagram, works like a charm!

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Stover on July 29, 2012 at 5:55am

I'm not sure the original question was answered... where'd you go poster?

I followed this same diagram and am having the same issue the original post described: Plugging in produces sound, but turning the volume knob has subtel effects on frequencies produced but does not reduce the volume. In either position (full left or full right) it's still full volume. Anyone have an idea how this could happen? I'm using a 500K pot and a piezo from CBGitty. Other than the resistance rating there's no difference between using one for volume or tone, right?

Thoughts and comments welcome!