How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

[gnugear]

I'm wondering if I have a faulty JB.

I measured my EVH by touching the black wire and the braided sleave with my multimeter. The reading I got was 9.0

I did the same with my Seth Lover and and got a 8.02

But when I tried measuring my JB I only got a 8.0. I'm not sure if I did it right because it's a four conductor and I'm not sure what to touch.

So how do I go about testing each coil? I was assuming that I touch one end to the black wire and the other to the red for one coil and white for the other?

[mrid]

Re: How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

Were the red and white wires connected on the JB? Touch the black wire to the positive tip and the green and bare to the negative tip.

[gnugear]

Re: How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

I touched the black probe to the black wire and the red probe to the green/bare wire. The reading I got was 1.8M .... which seems kind of weird.

When I touch the black probe to the black wire and the red probe to the red/white wire (soldered together), I got a reading of 8.0k

What's up with the 1.8M reading?

[I Rock So Hard]

Re: How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

I just bought one of those things today. I was trying to figure out how check resistance without taking guitars apart and thought to just use a 6 inch interconnect cable from the guitar output and touch the positive to the tip and the negative to the shaft. Yes I know it won't be exactly accurate since the pickup is going through a switch, a pot, a tone pot, etc. but checking against DiMarzios and Duncan tone charts it's as close as i need it to be for rough readings. Just to see if everything is working. And my readings have been close. The DUncan Distortion says on the tone chart 16.6k and i got 17k, but i have a couple pots and a switch in between so that proably accounts for the extra resistance.

[mrid]

Re: How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

I touched the black probe to the black wire and the red probe to the green/bare wire. The reading I got was 1.8M .... which seems kind of weird.

Reverse that. Red probe to black and black probe to green/bare.

[Kent S.]

Re: How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

Reverse that. Red probe to black and black probe to green/bare.

That won't matter, as resistance is not polarity sensitive, if a meter isn't auto-polarity then when measuring voltage or current, yeah that can cause false readings. It won't matter here though.

[Kent S.]

Re: How do you check resistance with a multi meter?

I just bought one of those things today. I was trying to figure out how check resistance without taking guitars apart and thought to just use a 6 inch interconnect cable from the guitar output and touch the positive to the tip and the negative to the shaft. Yes I know it won't be exactly accurate since the pickup is going through a switch, a pot, a tone pot, etc. but checking against DiMarzios and Duncan tone charts it's as close as i need it to be for rough readings. Just to see if everything is working. And my readings have been close. The DUncan Distortion says on the tone chart 16.6k and i got 17k, but i have a couple pots and a switch in between so that proably accounts for the extra resistance.

Depending how the guitar is wired it won't be anywhere near close ... your putting your pup's DCR in parallel with other pups(the switch settings), and the volume pot(s), once the tone pot cap charges to the DC of the meter it shouldn't matter. You can't check pup(s) DCR with out disconnecting coil tap/splits and at least one lead (hot or ground) from the rest of the circuit. If anything it will pull the DCR down, not up ... What you're saying here simply does not make sense, it very well may be the truth (in which case I would say that something is wired a bit weird or incorrect), but it doesn't make sense. If you take into account everything else connected and figure the resistance accordingly, and then figure what the pup resistance would be, then yeah, but then is that 500k pot that you figured in really 500k? That stuff can alter the results to a large degree, much better off just disconnected one lead on the pup (and any coil tap/splits), and then taking your measurement there.

Still the other guys (very low readings, and then high readings) sounds like he was originally doing something like the above guy, and then maybe didn't get good connections. You got to get solid good connections to the probes.
To measure each coil individually (SD pups) check the black and white (one coil), then the red and green (the other coil), the two value added together should give you the total pup value in series (normal humbucking mode);
for parallel humbucking mode take 1/ resistance of coil A + 1/ resistance of coil B = 1/ answer (meaning take the answer, and then take the reciprocal of it {divide 1 by it} that will give you your answer.
To measure it with the meter series is like they said red and white together, one lead to black, and the other lead to green; for parallel ... black and red together, one probe here; and white and green together, the other probe here. In parallel it doesn't matter whether they ae joined in phase or not, but I thought I'd list the clolour codes as in phase to avoid confusion down the line. Your readings should be close to the stated values (catalogue) at room temperature, only series resistance is shown (for humbuckers) and that's all that's needed to see if your pup is functioning properly, the rest is simply for your curiousity.