Tele wiring question, Pt.II

[Paul S.]

I asked you guys a few weeks ago about wiring a Phat Cat and 5-2 into a Tele with 2 volumes, 2 tones and a 3-way switch.
Going with what you said, I used 250K pots all around with .02mf caps going to the tone pots.
I finally got around to doing it, and now I've got something wierd going on. Either pickup by itself sound fine, but when I put them both on, they sound horribly out of phase... until I roll back either one of the volumes by a hair. Then they sound fine. I tried switching the wires on the 5-2, but then I get no signal out of the pup at all. ( That seems really wierd to me - that should work, shouldn't it?)
I've wired dozens of guitars, but I don't claim to be an expert by any means. Do you guys have any idea what is going on or what I may have done wrong?
Let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks you guys,
Paul

[Stratsky]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

Is it possible for you to draw a schematic of how you wired it and post it? That way it would be fairly simple to analyze.

[mrfjones]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

i can't remember which pickup you put in the neck position. but i know on a lot of tele pickups that if you try and change the wires you run your hot through the baseplate or on one of my neck pickups it would run through the cover. that might be why you are getting no signal with the wires switched

but they should be in phase with each other since they are both duncans. the rest i can't figure out without looking at a photo or diagram

[Kent S.]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

i can't remember which pickup you put in the neck position. but i know on a lot of tele pickups that if you try and change the wires you run your hot through the baseplate or on one of my neck pickups it would run through the cover. that might be why you are getting no signal with the wires switched

but they should be in phase with each other since they are both duncans. the rest i can't figure out without looking at a photo or diagram

Not sure about those pups (not familiar with them), but if one cover is grounded (say neck), and the baseplate of the bridge is grounded to the *cold* wire, and you swap the phase of the bridge (or neck) then you essentially run the hot line of the guitar to ground ... No signal, just like turning you guitar's volume to 0.
For whatever reason it seems your pups are out of phase, yes you would need to swap the phase of one, but you must make sure that the pup cover and /or baseplate gets run to Ground, and that the cold wires of the pups are not combined with the actual cover/baseplate/shield wires. You may have to run an extra wire or two, not sure what you have as far as conductors go. Yes the gentlemen are correct, pictures and or schematics would help.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

Either pickup by itself sound fine, but when I put them both on, they sound horribly out of phase... until I roll back either one of the volumes by a hair. Then they sound fine.

Thanks you guys,
Paul

This sounds like the type of thing that might happen if you soldered to the back of the pot, and possibly cooked the carbon trace away from the CW lug. The volume pot wouldn't be across the pup until you just start to turn it down, thus, making contact with the carbon strip.

The way to test it is to measure ohms across the outside two terminals of the pot - ideally, with nothing else connected to it.

[Kent S.]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

I guess the question becomes, whether his volume controls work normally or not. If they work normally with the individual pups, then that would make sense if the were out of phase, as lowering the volume of either pup would result in a much more *in phase* sound, as the cancellations would be minimized. I thought he was describing the pups being out of phase, and when he reversed them the guitar shorted out (being that the pup cold was tied to a shield/cover/baseplate ground line). Maybe, I'm not reading it correctly.

[Paul S.]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

Kent-
That is exactly the way it is. The volumes each work normally for the individual settings - just not when both pickups are on.
I don't really have a way to post a schematic of it, but I can say that I copied exactly Seymour's schematic for 2 pickups in a Strat with 2 volumes, 2 tones and a 3-way switch.
I can't swap the wires on the PhatCat, as it's a single conductor inside of the shield. I had tried to swap the leads of the 5-2, as they are individual leads. If I have to do anything wierd to get these in phase (soldering more wires to the pickup, etc.) I think that I'll take it to a pro, since I don't want to wreck these badboys...

As always, thank you guys.

Paul

[Kent S.]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

Kent-
That is exactly the way it is. The volumes each work normally for the individual settings - just not when both pickups are on.
I don't really have a way to post a schematic of it, but I can say that I copied exactly Seymour's schematic for 2 pickups in a Strat with 2 volumes, 2 tones and a 3-way switch.
I can't swap the wires on the PhatCat, as it's a single conductor inside of the shield. I had tried to swap the leads of the 5-2, as they are individual leads. If I have to do anything wierd to get these in phase (soldering more wires to the pickup, etc.) I think that I'll take it to a pro, since I don't want to wreck these badboys...

As always, thank you guys.

Paul

Sounds like you are going to have to have one of the two done, if the bridge 52 has a baseplate (couldn't tell from the site specs) then you'll have to solder a ground wire to that, and disconnect the pups cold wire that would join that (really you would only be disconnecting the plate connection to that wire), that baseplate wire that you'll add will go to ground, and then you reverse the pups black and yellow leads. It's not that difficult, I swear though that thing looks like it doesn't have a baseplate ...oh, well.
The secong option is to remove the cover of the Phat Cat, and reverse it's magnets (both of them). Either one of these can be done, the bridge pup fix is probably easier to do, if you take your time and be careful you won't mess up anything, but if you'd feel better about having a tech do it that's totally understandable. You may also want to see if perhaps who you bought it from will exchange it (or SD) for another that's RW/RP.

[Paul S.]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

Kent-
Just wanted to let you know that I finally got around to doing this last night, and it worked perfectly! Thanks for your insight.
I gotta say, though, that the 5-2 in the bridge combined with a phat cat in the neck is one of the wierdest pup combos I've heard. I may wind up swapping out the 5-2 with something else.

Also, I'm gonna post a picture as soon as I can - I just bought the coolest amp I've ever heard - a Tone King Meteor 30A. It's gorgeous and I want you guys to check it out!

Again and again,
Thanks.

[Kent S.]

Re: Tele wiring question, Pt.II

Cool deal Paul!