Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Haha oh man, what a mess I've made! I can't believe I put capacitors on the 2 volumes!
I can't thank you enough for your help, you've been great! I'll fix all those things tomorrow, thanks!

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Okay, I've fixed those problems (apart from the wires haven't been taped together, don't have any electrical tape, need to buy some in very soon) and the neck and mid volume is working but it seems that all the pickups are selected in every position on the 5 way switch and the bridge volume doesn't work. Much better than last time at least!

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

About the bridge volume not working, if it hasn't been changed since before, it doesn't appear the lugs are connected to the correct wires. The small black wire from the humbucker needs to attach to the left lug, the switch connects to the middle lug, and the right lug should be connected to ground/earth. (Currently it looks like possibly both the pickup and the switch are on the left lug, which would bypass the whole pot; the center lug looks possibly connected to ground, which would short out and give you no, or very little volume if it were working, and the right lug doesn't look connected to anything though it should be connected to ground/earth.)

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Thanks, I have wired that pot as the diagram shows, the black pickup wire is on the left lug, the wire to the switch is on the centre lug and I tried my best with getting the right lug soldered to ground (on the back the of the pot). If that lug wasn't properly grounded would that render the volume useless?
I will post pictures tomorrow of what I have now, still don't have any electrical tape :/

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Yeah, if that last lug isn't grounded, then the volume pot will just function as a resistor in the signal path. I will slightly lower the signal or darken it like a weak tone control, but it will never turn the volume down.

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

I don't think it's very well grounded, I couldn't even get it to move that near the surface of the pot. Here's some pictures of what I have now, hope these help!
Sorry if the pcituresu aren't as clear, I had to se an older camera.

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

It looks possibly correct now.

Visually, the tone pot looks ok. The neck/mid volume looks ok, but there is a lot of solder on the back of the pot. The bridge volume looks correct, but all the ground connections on the back look like they are barely hanging on, and the bare strands from the neck/mid pickups are crossing awfully close to the lugs of the bridge volume pot. If those touch when you put it back in, it will short out the bridge volume - likely turning the bridge pickup off. The main positive/hot lead from the switch to the output also looks like it's barely hanging on, and it's exposed, so if it touches other parts of the switch, it could cause things to not work properly (but I commented on that before.)

Is there anything specific not working at this point?

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

It looks possibly correct now.

Visually, the tone pot looks ok. The neck/mid volume looks ok, but there is a lot of solder on the back of the pot. The bridge volume looks correct, but all the ground connections on the back look like they are barely hanging on, and the bare strands from the neck/mid pickups are crossing awfully close to the lugs of the bridge volume pot. If those touch when you put it back in, it will short out the bridge volume - likely turning the bridge pickup off. The main positive/hot lead from the switch to the output also looks like it's barely hanging on, and it's exposed, so if it touches other parts of the switch, it could cause things to not work properly (but I commented on that before.)

Is there anything specific not working at this point?

Thanks for the reply.

Okay, I will clean up the solder on the neck/mid pot. When I acquire some electrical tape I will cover the exposed parts of the bare strands, however that neck pickup will be getting replaced in about 3 weeks maybe (when the custom pickup is finished) and I will also tape together the red and white humbucker wires. I guess I also need to maybe get more solder onto the wires on the back of the bridge vol pot.

Which wire is the one "main positive/hot lead from the switch to the output" is that the jack tip?

And as for what isn't working, the bridge volume which you know and the 5 way switch which doesn't seem to actually do anything at the moment, it's not switching pickups. For example in the neck position all the pickups are active.

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Hmm, the switch looks like it's wired correctly on the solder lugs/tabs. The only thing I can think of at this point is stray solder, like if solder ran down the lugs to the blade and are connecting everything together when it shouldn't.

Yeah, output = jack, so the positive lead is going to the 'tip' solder lug on that.

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Hmm, the switch looks like it's wired correctly on the solder lugs/tabs. The only thing I can think of at this point is stray solder, like if solder ran down the lugs to the blade and are connecting everything together when it shouldn't.

Yeah, output = jack, so the positive lead is going to the 'tip' solder lug on that.

Ah right, I'm not very handy with a soldering iron
So things to do is clean up the second pot, clean up the switch joints and tape up the exposed wires and tape together the red and white ones from the Humbucker. Okay cool.

Thanks again for all your help I'll go do those things and then lets see where it's at.

Just a wee idea. How problematic would it prove to install a bridge-on switch? Like a toggle switch for the bridge pickup to be turned on and off, allowing combinations like neck+bridge or all 3 but still having the standard Strat switching available.

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Yeah you could do. It would insert on the wire between the bridge volume and the switch, and would connect to the current bridge spot on the 5-way and also the output spot on the 5-way where the tone connects. Might want to get what you have working and stable before modding further, however.

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Awesome, and yeah haha of course I should have said, "but that will have to wait until it's fixed and working" silly me.

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Okay, well it's not completely fixed but it's still better than it was.



And for your (beaubrummels) benefit I have videoed the testing through a small amp.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/im8liumeed2focb/IMG_2097.MOV

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Ok, from the demo video, what I got was:

1. Bridge (appeared to be single coil at first, but later it appeared both coils worked when combined with the middle.)
2. Bridge + Middle
3. Middle
4. Middle + Neck
5. Neck

One thing that seemed wrong was it appeared the tone control behaved like a volume, which tells me either cap is not working, the cap leg soldered to the pot lug is touching the pot casing/body before signal can pass through the cap.

Another thing I couldn't tell is if the independent volumes were behaving correctly. It appeared so, the bridge was off when the bridge volume was down and it appeared the middle/neck volume followed the middle volume knob.

Are there other specific things you are noticing that are not working as expected?

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Ok, from the demo video, what I got was:

1. Bridge (appeared to be single coil at first, but later it appeared both coils worked when combined with the middle.)
2. Bridge + Middle
3. Middle
4. Middle + Neck
5. Neck

One thing that seemed wrong was it appeared the tone control behaved like a volume, which tells me either cap is not working, the cap leg soldered to the pot lug is touching the pot casing/body before signal can pass through the cap.

Another thing I couldn't tell is if the independent volumes were behaving correctly. It appeared so, the bridge was off when the bridge volume was down and it appeared the middle/neck volume followed the middle volume knob.

Are there other specific things you are noticing that are not working as expected?

Ah right, so I want both coils to be working on position 1. On pos. 2 it does have both coils, by turning down the neck/mid volume that position could work like I want the first one to but I'd rather it would just work normally in that aspect.

The tone pot doesn't seem to be too bad, I can replace the old cap with one of the ones I foolishly soldered to the volumes. Also the tone pot hasn't been replaced, it's still a stock Squier one, would be a good idea to replace it with the same 500K fender pot I have as the bridge volume?

And as for things I have noticed, it's very noisy on all positions but when on the 1st (and second maybe, can't quite remember) the noise from the pickup isn't stopped by rolling down the bridge volume, where as when on positions 3,4 and 5 the noise is stopped (as would be expected) by rolling down the neck/mid volume.

Thanks for the reply.