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Dimebucker 4 wire issues...completely lost here.

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  • Dimebucker 4 wire issues...completely lost here.

    Hello fellow enthusiasts,

    I have looked through the forums some and have not seen anyone with a unique cluster**** of a situation like I am currently in so here we go:

    I have a guitar with 2 humbuckers. SH-1n for the neck and in the bridge is an SH-13 Dimebucker. So they are both seymour duncan pickups.

    For the guts I have an all solderless EMG system. Originally it was just two basic volume pots and a master tone pot.

    I got a little adventurous and decided to upgrade the two volume pots to the new series/parallel potentiometers EMG recently started offering(these are all passive btw, no 9v powered accessories in this build).

    Now I can confirm all the pots are working, but with my dimebucker pickup I am getting a very peculiar behavior....

    When the pot is in its down position it should be in series..... but it barely makes any sound at all! Like I can barely hear the amps picking up on it unless I strum and then its hardly anything.
    When the pot is in its UP position it should be parallel which deadens the sound SOME (but not like previously), but instead it sounds like it is somehow playing in series full volume.....

    In a nutshell: it is almost like the pickup is acting in reverse, except parallel works as series and series acts as a broken parallel.

    I made sure to line up the seymour duncan colors with the EMG colors so I can confirm all the North start/finish and South start/finish are properly lined up as they should be.
    I tried swapping them out as well in all kinds of layouts, ones that should work and ones that def wouldnt, with no success or difference in behavior.

    Any other pickup I have tried whether it is seymour duncan, dimarzio, emg, homemade, etc.... all work fine except the dimebucker......

    Does this sound like anything that anyone has experienced with a humbucker before or maybe the Dimebucker in particular?
    I think I should also mentioned that I stripped the wires on the dimebucker down to its soldered posts and put my own cabling on it, and its still doing the same stuff as before...sorry forgot to add that in first edit.

    Thanks for taking the time to read this.
    Last edited by shutin; 07-01-2020, 12:22 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Dimebucker 4 wire issues...completely lost here.

    welcome to the forum!

    do you have a multi meter handy? check black and white then red and green, let us know what you find. im not familiar with the emg solderless system so cant help ya there

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    • #3
      Re: Dimebucker 4 wire issues...completely lost here.

      I feel slightly embarrassed that I did not think to do that next LOL, I do not have one on hand but one is coming in the mail....hopefully tomorrow? (thanks ups).

      Just for the sake of clarity as I bury things in walls of text too often: all the potentiometers and pickups work fine in this build, with exception to the SH-13 Dimebucker this is being a problem child no matter where I test it.

      I messed with it some more yesterday, black and white(north finish and south finish for this color scheme, which should be series connection pairing) sounds like the broken parallel sound, but yet when I use the black and green I get full on series sound......
      green = south start
      black = north finish

      I have only been doing this a couple years now, but shouldn't that pairing NOT work? lol
      I always understood series connection is both finishes, parallel is the start to finish on each pairing?

      I am also aware of the seymour duncan scheme, but when I use the white red cables I get nothing at all either.
      The potentiometer is supposed to have the north and south bobbins on their own separate pin pairings, each and so far this pickup seems to not work in either seymour duncan or EMGs wire pairings.

      So strange.


      Thanks for reading, I will hopefully be able to update with some numbers tomorrow for each bobbin coil.
      Last edited by shutin; 07-02-2020, 11:49 AM.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Dimebucker 4 wire issues...completely lost here.

        typical series wiring for duncan would be red and white as the series link, black as hot, green as ground.

        black and white are one coil, red and green are the other

        once you have the meter, we can try and figure it out

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Dimebucker 4 wire issues...completely lost here.

          It is with a sad heart that I can now confirm the south bobbin is broken somehow.

          North bobbin was throwing the usual 8ish and then when I got the south bobbin hooked up....nothing

          Took the bobbins out to further inspect and I did not notice last time but the red posts pickup wire is completely disconnected from the coil and was sticking out kinda waving at me...mocking me (Seymour Duncan Red wire, so that is south finish? i think.)

          I went ahead and just ordered a replacement while I see if I cannot salvage this down the road one day.

          Thanks again for your assistance.

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