Faulty SH-4 JB

[StuartJ]

In more than a year there has consistently been a problem with the SH-4 JB. I have installed it in three different guitars, and with each of them it cuts out after about 5 minutes of playing

Advice received was that the soldering needs checking, because this problem is common with cold soldering which heats up.

Here is the interesting part. In frustration, I once hit the unit with my fist. A sharp downward chop with the edge of my hand. And it started functioning again. Works every time.

This 'workaround' is necessary periodically during a playing session. Its hard to believe that this action would rectify a cold soldering issue, and this leads me to believe that the unit is defective in some way

Does anyone have insights into why this is happening?

[Masta' C]

Sounds like a connection becoming intermittent inside the pickup (broken wire, cold joint, etc). Similarly, wires might be touching as they move during play and/or expand with temperature changes.

You're saying this behavior has been the same with this pickup in 3 different guitars?

[Clint 55]

^ That's been my experience. In my case it was the leads inside the tape. I opened it up and fixed the connections and that was it.

[GuitarDoc]

You say that the advice you received was to check soldering (which means to reheat all the connections). Did you do that or did you decide hitting it was good enough?

The fact that it has happened in three different guitars makes me think it is not a wire/connection shorting out to another wire or to ground...that would be too great of a coincidence. But if your soldering skills are not up to par, I would suspect that it is a bad solder connection.

In any case, it would be good if you could take some good clear photos of all of the connections for us to look at.

[hamerfan]

Check the inner connections to the 4 con wire with a multimeter and resolder the inner connections including the ground to baseplate.

[GuitarDoc]

^ Yes, it very well could be a poor connection or even a broken wire at the coil, under the tape.