Bridge ground wiring

[cangaroo]

Hi there,

yesterday i opened the control cavity of my 4001 because i had a great buzz so i discovered that the bridge ground wire was detached from the main circuit, unfortunately i could not remember where the wire was originally soldered, so i soldered it on a pot shell ... now the situation is improved but still i get some tiny crackles when i play ....

so what is the best place where to solder the ground wire ?

Thank you !!

[iiipopes]

You soldered it in the right place. However, because of everything else in there, you have to be careful that the wire is completely soldered to the pot lug, which may mean melting some of the preexisting solder, and using a lot of flux, then letting it set to get a good, shiny, smooth solder connection as the solder cools. Otherwise, you'll get a "cold soldered" joint that gunk, flux, or oxidataion may still be in the joint or the wire surface, which will interfere with the connection and can cause the crackles. Also, since it has come loose, I'd check the bridge end of things as well to make sure that connection is secure.

Another common source of crackles is the jack, if there is dirt or gunk on the contacts, or if they've been bent by using an inferior plug/cord.

[johnallg]

What Scott said. While you're in there also look at the rest of the ground wires and maybe clean the switch contacts too. A rough strip of heavy paper between the contacts that are closed when in up or down postition and pulled through a couple times will clean them. Remember to do both contact sets.

[jps]

.....yesterday i opened the control cavity of my 4001 because i had a great buzz.....

I haven't had one in a very long time.

[cangaroo]

well thanks a lot to you all guys

... now i'm re doing the soldering and i'll see if the crackles disappear !!

[cangaroo]

Ok solved the problem.

To make a long story short, i had the solder re-done but still buzzing. So i remembered that my home's electrical wire has no ground !!
So i checked into my grandma home (grounded) plugged the bass there, and got absolutely ZERO noise ...

I was misleaded because at my home i have 3 basses : a p bass, a tbird like bass and the rick. The rick and the p has buzz while the tbird is perfectly silent, so i guessed that the p and the rick had ground problem, but at this point i guess it's due to the pick up type ...

[cjj]

Good to hear you know the source of the problem now. I had the same issue at my last house, it was old enough that it didn't have grounds. I solved it with an isolation transformer on the mains. Just get one big enough to handle the wattage of your amp...