Pickup Ground Wires...

[Strat1127]

I have changed many pickups in my day and I must say...I HATE soldering grounds to pots. Worrying about any potential ground loops...are there any reasons I can't connect all pickup grounds directly to the sleeve on the output jack?

[Mincer]

One reason is that it's messy, and there isn't a lot of surface area there. If all grounds are connected, you should be fine.

[Benjy_26]

IDK if you'd have enough space on the output jack for all the ground wires on a guitar.

For example, on a strat, you'd have at *least* 7 ground wires going to the output jack with traditional, SSS wiring.

[ThreeChordWonder]

I would think you would need to ground the pot casings anyway, and I, for one, wouldn't rely on foil pickguard backings or similar instead. If they don't get torn up the first time you tighten down the pots, they surely will over time.

Loads of how-to video on soldering to pot casings, so I'm not going to add anything useful here, except, as usual, to say you need a high wattage iron.

An alternative is to use solder tabs - washers with little lugs you can solder the wires to. You can buy them on line, maybe even at auto parts stores. Solder the wires to them, then put the washer parts over the shafts in place of / in addition to the shakeproof washers.

[alex1fly]

I believe you're talking about the star grounding concept (all grounds to a single point). If you want to get creative, you could solder a large gauge connector wire to the output jack's ground, twist your unsoldered ground wire ends together, and then solder your twisted group to your connector wire. Just brainstorming.

[Hank-]

I don't see how you would get ground loop in a guitar control cavity. There's only one ground terminal on the output jack, the bare wires from the pickups and the ground wires of each pickup will meet this point and end up connected to each other irrespective of whether the bare wires & all metal parts are soldered to one spot and the pickup grounds are soldered to another spot.

[Strat1127]

I would think you would need to ground the pot casings anyway, and I, for one, wouldn't rely on foil pickguard backings or similar instead. If they don't get torn up the first time you tighten down the pots, they surely will over time.

Loads of how-to video on soldering to pot casings, so I'm not going to add anything useful here, except, as usual, to say you need a high wattage iron.

An alternative is to use solder tabs - washers with little lugs you can solder the wires to. You can buy them on line, maybe even at auto parts stores. Solder the wires to them, then put the washer parts over the shafts in place of / in addition to the shakeproof washers.

I should have specified this but as part of the PUP swap, I will be installing a new fully wired harness from Toneman Guitars. He solders his pot-to-pot grounds on the side of the pot instead of on top. I would just be soldering the hot leads and grounds from the pickups. Since I will be using Duncans, teh green and bare wires are small So I was thinking about just soldering those 4 wires (2 pups) to the output jack lug to save me from having to ground to the back of the pots.

[ThreeChordWonder]

I wouldn't do that. I would wire the pickups properly.

One place you could try soldering to are the little folded over tabs on the pot casings, the ones that hold the casings in place.

What I have also done in the past is solder on extra "tails" to the pickup wires to extend them where needed, e.g. to get a decent ground connection without stretching out the individual wires too much. So long as you get decent joints, and insulate them, it isn't a problem.

The tails are "sacrificial" too, by which I mean if you melt the insulation or otherwise have to cut them back forre-soldering, you're not cutting the original pickup wires themselves.

[dave74]

Chisel tip on the iron makes it much easier and quicker to go onto the back of pots. 30w or 40w is enough with a chisel tip. Just make sure it's fully heated before using.

[alex1fly]

A hot enough iron makes a difference too. I used to fry pots with my weak iron because I've have to hold it on the pot so long. Now with a 140 watt soldering gun I can make much quicker work of soldering to the pot casing. My trick is to get a solder connection on the pot casing first and then solder the wire to that (as opposed to trying to get the solder on the wire to flow onto the pot casing). So far so good.

[ThreeChordWonder]

^As above.

"Tinning" the wire ends helps too.

[beaubrummels]

I've done wiring where I didn't solder to the pot backs. I used the ground lugs from the pots and chained the ground along. I've also done a 'star' ground where I soldered all the grounds to a washer or piece of conductive metal, then soldered that to the jack. I've also used a terminal strip where one main ground wire went to the jack and all the other grounds connected to the terminals.

As long as all the ground connections eventually connect to the jack ground lug, it's fine.

There's no such thing as a ground loop in a guitar because there aren't two different grounds to loop. It all goes to the same single jack ground lug. But when you get tricky with your wiring, you're more likely to miss connecting a ground, and then it won't work properly.

[Mincer]

I always go for something that is neat- if something goes wrong later on, it helps to see what is going on.

[GuitarDoc]

All very good suggestions here. Just remember...everything needs to be grounded; all grounds need to be connected; there is NO ground loop in guitar wiring; so, anyway you do it is fine. Just do it as simply as possible (tricky doesn't make it better).

High power iron is best.
Chisel tip is best for soldering to large objects like pot backs.
Pre-tin everything you are soldering.
Heat the metal before adding solder or soldering the wire to it (sometimes melting a bit of solder facilitates heat transfer and helps to heat the back of a pot quicker).
High heat for a short duration is better than low heat for a long duration. It actually makes a better solder joint and causes less damage.

[GuitarDoc]

I have changed many pickups in my day and I must say...I HATE soldering grounds to pots. Worrying about any potential ground loops...are there any reasons I can't connect all pickup grounds directly to the sleeve on the output jack?

I actually LOVE soldering grounds to the pots. It is BY FAR the easiest part of wiring a guitar. No worry at all about loops.