Wiring Issues!

[mrfrisky330]

Bonjour!

Decided to upgrade the old guitar and put some snazzy seymour duncans in and two push/pull pots for coil tapping and upgraded the 3 way toggles switch for a nice switchcraft one

Printed out the seymour duncan wiring diagram for 2 humbuckers, 1 vol,1 tone 3 way swich and 2 push/pulls.

Wired it exactly as the diagram, beauty with the guitar being direct mount no scratchplate to remove so I can wire everything with the guitar on its side and put in a few strings to test it

However, after checking about 6 times I plugged in the guitar - nothing - forgot to increase the volume - doh! Started to increase the volume, total silence then at about 5 suddenly a loud audible buzz then as I went past 5 silence...

?????

Looked at the wiring diagram again, matched the guitar, very confused... then wondered why in a dual coil tap system you would take BOTH outputs of the switch into the tone control???!!??

Took the bridge output to the 3rd tone pot lug (diagram shows the pot facing the volume pot with volune pot lug 1 direct wired to lug 3 on tone pot) put ther neck output to lug 1 on the volume left the direct connect between lug 3 and lug 1 - et voila! Sound and fully working coil taps !

But (nnoooooo) there is a truly hideous loud continous buzz, double checked all the earths and the earthing wiring in the diagram it matches plus plugging the guitar in the computer each pickups sounded like with was slightly flanged??

The two questions that come to mind are:

1 : What on earth is causing the humbuckers to really really hum not matter the switch is??
2 : Why didn't the wiring diagram work??

[ArtieToo]

Re: Wiring Issues!

Welcome to the forum.

1 : What on earth is causing the humbuckers to really really hum not matter the switch is??
2 : Why didn't the wiring diagram work??

1. You did something wrong.
2. See #1.

Sorry . . . just trying to be light-hearted. I know how frustrating this can be. I do guitar wiring as a pro, and I still make mistakes.

The first thing I'd look for is a "ground" wire touching something it shouldn't. Both 5-wire, and 2-wire pickups have an exposed ground wire. In the control cavity are multiple "hot" spots. The volume/tone lugs, the selector terminals, and the push-pull terminals. Look everything over carefully and make sure a "bare" wire isn't touching something it shouldn't.

We'll go from there.

Artie

[mrfrisky330]

Re: Wiring Issues!

Inspected every ground, re soldered any that looked suspicious, then gently moved each wire to see if there was any change to the hum - none!

Even made sure there was a wire from the bridge to the volume pot.
BUT, did notice I have no cap in the tone control, would this eliminate the hum and stop that strange water sound?

[AlexR]

Re: Wiring Issues!

We'll need pics of your wiring, and a link to the specific diagram you followed of course.

Reading you post, I see you mucked about with the push/pull wiring. With the p/p used as a split, the output of this is to ground, as you are moving the switch to short-circuit 1 coil. So if you haven't got one set of lugs wired to ground you'll need to do this. And the diagram you followed doesn't have the output into the tone control......they are both grounded to the backs of their respective pots.
Make sure your volume pot is grounded too, and that the pot grounds also connect through to the output jack.

A push/pull is actually 2 switches in one enclosure....2 rows of 3 poles. You can choose to use 1 to split both pickups if its either humbuckers OR split you want. If you want the option of splitting only 1 pickup at a time then you'll need to use both p/p's.

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Wiring Issues!

If you don't have a cap on the tone pot, better put it in if you want the tone pot to work.

"...then wondered why in a dual coil tap system you would take BOTH outputs of the switch into the tone control???!!??"

What?!! Are you talking about the pup selector switch? There's only one output.

If you're referring to the p/p switch, there are no particular outputs...only what you make the lugs to be.

[mrfrisky330]

Re: Wiring Issues!

No the switchcraft switch has TWO outputs and two inputs plus ground, the wiring diagram shows a normal 2 in/1 ground/1output and has the output into the tone control ???
Anyhoo, got it too work no hum!!

First a little background:
I recently bought a lovely Washburn PXM18EB (8 string) it came with EMG 808 pickups and I didn't like the sound overly bright very sterile, not what I would pick for an alder bodied guitar...so looked around for some nice non aggressive pickups as I like lots of tone

After talking to Lundgren, Bare knuckles and Dimarzio the logical choice was the Seymour Duncan Pegasus/Sentient set (except I could only get the Sentient in passive mount as 8 string pickups are near impossible to source in the UK) the 4 core wire was perfect so I then printed out the wiring diagram for a dual p/p pot system. Bought the pots decided the remove all the electronics and wires from the guitar bought the Switchcraft switch (but forgot the tone capacitor!) left the stereo output jack and grabbed a handful of shielded copper speaker wire and set to work.

Having discovered the wiring diagram didn't work and made the small change to get all the pickups to work that just left me with a constant mighty hum. Then thought "bridge grounding, there isn't any with active pickups!" so took off the bridge to discover Washburn had kindly drilled on for me so stuffed a wire down the hole soldered the bridge end to some copper foil laid the bridge on it soldered the other end to the volume pot earth - still hum!

But at least the grounding circuits complete so what could it be? Me thinks that stereo output jack could be needing to be wired differently so I swapped the wires round and et voila!

No hum and a complete active to passive pickup conversion with dual coil tapping, now I just need to sell the old (well there 2 weeks old) EMG 808 pickups plus wiring loom and pots

[AlexR]

Re: Wiring Issues!

But at least the grounding circuits complete so what could it be? Me thinks that stereo output jack could be needing to be wired differently so I swapped the wires round and et voila!

No hum and a complete active to passive pickup conversion with dual coil tapping, now I just need to sell the old (well there 2 weeks old) EMG 808 pickups plus wiring loom and pots

Now there's an important piece of info that should have been in the first post. I gather you don't work in communications!!

And the switch has two input slots, but the method of selection is just removal of the contact between in and out....its a de-selector switch. The two 'outputs' as you call them are pinched together and a single wire taken from this. Its even shown as a bridged connection on the wiring diagram.
This is the only way that the switch actually becomes a pickup selector switch. And typically it would go to the volume, with a connector to the tone. Why SD chooses to have drawn to the tone and a bridge wire to the volume is just a way of confusing people, but it works just the same way. Hopefully you've put your multi lug, multi wire thing to bed and followed the diagram there.

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Wiring Issues!

Moral of the story:

When converting actives to passives and keeping the stereo jack, the correct ground wire goes to the other lug on the jack. No not that one, the other one.

"That one goes there, that one goes there. Pass me the Hydros, dammit."

[mrfrisky330]

Re: Wiring Issues!

I kept my separate switchcraft output lug to each pot seems logical, it works brilliantly especially now I have added the (missing) cap on the tone.

The sound is spectacular compared to the EMG's, the log pots do a superb job especailly the tone, the coil taps have an almost P90 sound very, very good range of tones clean and after I "compensated" for the 27" scale length by raising the action on the 8th and 7th strings getting great clarity dirty on the lowest strings - laughs in the face of ESP SC608B I used to have and it was half the price for twice the spec

Next challenge: somehow hang on till June for the 29 fret 7 string!!