A Vote For Solderless Connections

Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

aleclee said:
If you're doing a lot of pickup swaps, you can definitely make it easier on yourself if you wire in some leads where you connect the pickups in one easy place.

I just rewired my tele (4-way switch and flipped the plate) and did just that. When it came to attach the pickups, I just had four easy connections and I was done.
Click to expand...

That's actually my argument for wiring terminals inside the guitar. Rather than have quick connects that can become corroded on the pickups, I'd like to see someone with a nice, clean screw terminal, or solder terminal patchbay that then fed the rest of the guitar from there. I think there was an active preamp like that at some point, like for a piezo on an acoustic or something. The piezo and the output jack wires went to a screw terminal for a solderless connection.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

EMG's way is really beyond extraordinarily easy, actually it would take like...2 minutes tops.

Ok, EMG uses circuit boards and all right and then they lead to where the terminals are...well...forget that!

All you have to do is cut the wires short, stick some of the 'needles' into the connector that you'll wire up to hte pots, etc. and then solder the right connections to the right ones, then hot glue it to the base of the pickup...voila, instant quick-connect!
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

Screw terminals! And f.... Oh, sorry, yes, screw terminals. Brilliant idea! Better and probably easier than the computer-style plug-in connectors. Responding to the WIFI idea, how about laser detectors which would see the string for perfect reading of it. A solid beam across the 6 strings. Perfect precision. Problem is, just like Ceramic vs Alnico, Alnico is often preferred because it does affect the sound, whereas a laser reading of the strings motion might be somewhat too clean. But maybe not. I'll leave it up to Wile E. Coyote.:22:

This is why they call this the pickup LOUNGE.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

Only the pots would need to be modified to include spring clips like on the back of a high-end speaker cab. Take the bare wire from the Pickup, press the spring on the pot to open, insert bare wire through hole in pot-lug, release spring tension to clamp pup wire into pup-lug.

Zat make sense?
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

LesPaulRules said:
The problem of threading the pickup wire through a small narrow wiring channel. The thought of dealing with plugs while I'm running a pickup wire down the cavity of a Les Paul would be a nightmare.
Click to expand...

This is one of the best points in the thread, which didn't even occur to me.
Even a small 4 terminal plug could be a real pain to thread through a body channel. Sometimes leads get stuck just by having frayed wire at the end.....imagine trying to push a plug through a narrow channel, already occupied by another lead? Especially a neck pickup.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

Have the connection inside the pickup solt ... then there's no need to thread it through the body channel. Just have to have room. Then you take the pickup out and swap it out ... no worries.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

In fact, doesn't EMG pickups have something like this already? Just get Seymour Duncan to offer the same thing. Small standard connectors at the pickups.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

My opinion on the solderless connections is that they would not save that much time and would be another place for the pickup to fail. You still have to remove the strings and remove the pickup from the mounting ring to replace pickups. What's another minute a soldering in the pickup? Also, the conectors with that small of a wire are not that reliable. My Marshall DSL 50 uses wiring like that in the reverb tank and those connectors have failed me before.

But on the other hand, it would be cool to be able to swap out numerous pickups with out having to pull out the soldering gun and wire strippers. I think the best way to do it would to be have the connector close to the pickup (the way EMG does it) and have wiring harness connect to the circuitry in the guitar. This would allow you to not have to mess with the wiring (especially if you have a very complex wiring scheme, like the Jimi Page wiring) and you can wrie the pickups anyway you wish. This also open up more options in the preasembaled wiring kits. All you have to do is place the wiring kit in and hook up the picks without one bit of soldering. You can have all of the pots, switches, and output jacks wired together with the pickup wiring harness.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

It must work for EMG ... they sell them stock. I'd buy ... I just don't want EMG pickups. Seymour comes up sith something like this ... I'll have more SD pickups for sure.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

Quite frankly, I like the smell of hot solder....that's reason enough to keep soldering.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

Soldering is one of the easiest aspects of guitar maintenance. If you don't think you're up to it, take it to a tech.

Why would SD waste time and resources developing a solution for something that isn't really a problem? If anything, it would cause far more problems than it would solve.
 
Re: A Vote For Solderless Connections

Dan Armstrong PLEXI guitar came with six different pups that plugged into two banana sytle plugs.

Great sounding guitar - but way too heavy for playing all night long.
 
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