Bass needs to "charge" - any clues?

[crystAlex]

Hi guys,
I got this pretty old stingray which I bought about 10 years ago, 2nd hand.
It's in great shape, but whenever I haven't played in a long time (I play guitar mostly, and only get this misses out for tracking new songs), the bass will not give any signal for about 30 min or so. I need to put in a new battery, plug in the cable... Wait... then some loud crackles and pops, and then suddenly: signal coming through, no problem whatsoever.
Same story if I repeat the story in the subsequent days, only it takes a few minutes then.
To me, that sounds like a capacitor problem, but I wanted to check if anyone had any experience with this so far...
Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

Hi guys,
I got this pretty old stingray which I bought about 10 years ago, 2nd hand.
It's in great shape, but whenever I haven't played in a long time (I play guitar mostly, and only get this misses out for tracking new songs), the bass will not give any signal for about 30 min or so. I need to put in a new battery, plug in the cable... Wait... then some loud crackles and pops, and then suddenly: signal coming through, no problem whatsoever.
Same story if I repeat the story in the subsequent days, only it takes a few minutes then.
To me, that sounds like a capacitor problem, but I wanted to check if anyone had any experience with this so far...
Thanks in advance for the help!

These come to mind:

*Battery box...intermittent connection with the battery. terminals.

*Output jack or surrounding loose wiriing.

 

[crystAlex]

That'd be interesting, and a lot less of a hassle than a capacitor. Thanks for thinking along!

 

[crystAlex]

Although it does beg the question... how could a loose wiring lead to "perfect" connection once the bass is "charged". Because once it is, I don't get any more disconnections. Perhaps a few pops/glitches in the first minutes.

 

[beej]

I agree with Rod- sounds like a bad connection in the battery box. I've had this happen with guitars.

Not all 9V batteries fit the same. An easy fix is to take a little folded piece of paper, cardboard, etc. and put it on the bottom of the battery, so when the compartment is closed, the battery makes a better connection with the terminals. You can also check to see if the terminals have flattened out ... you can pry them back a little with a screwdriver so they make contact with the battery terminals.