Common ground

I'm starting to plan out the wiring for my current build - is the practice of soldering grounds to the back of a pot just a convenient way to solder all grounds to a single point, or is it a necessity? Could I get away with earthing it all to the cavity shielding?

The main reason I ask is that I've got some push-push pots that have a DPDT switch backing onto the pot. I could probably squeeze a solder blob onto the side, but knowing how fiddly it can be to stick solder to pots, I'd rather just avoid the headache altogether.

Thanks!

Yeah I just soldered to the side of the pot when I did a build with push-pulls. Theoretically earthing to the shielding should be fine. The pot casing would be touching it and therefore earthed. I guess the only potential issue might be creating a short and sending signal to ground too early, but it would depend on the diagram you are following.

You generally need to solder one of the lugs to earth anyway so doing a small bridge to the pot casing isn't too difficult.

Having done a few push/pulls I have found running an earth to the curved side works best plus another from the bottom lug/tag to the same on the other push/pull switch when using 2. By this I mean the metal bit at lowest point when fully seated in the control cavity.

Tend to reckon earth on sides works better on standard pots too compared to a large blob in the middle of the base.

Cool, I'll solder to the side of the pot then. Thanks guys.

Which pots are they? Some push-push pots (like the Allparts pots) have a ground tab on them so you don't need to solder to the pot casing.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Which pots are they? Some push-push pots (like the Allparts pots) have a ground tab on them so you don't need to solder to the pot casing.

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No such luck. It's one of these, and doesn't have a ground tab. All good though. I'll make do.

That metal tab sticking out forwards at the bottom is part of the casing and so should be connected to all the other external metalwork.

Attachment 30124

So you'll find it much easier connecting a ground wire to that than to the side of the pot. I'd double check that's so with a multimeter, but I'm sure it will be as all the bare metal surfaces seem to touch.

Don't forget to scrub the surface of the tab with some fine sandpaper so the solder takes more easily.