Are the Duncan Designed pickups the same wiring?

[BowerR64]

I bought a used guitar off craigslist about 3 months ago, ive played the hell out of it and it has a REALLY nice sound. Finally after a few months i changed the strings while i had the strings off i pulled the pickup out to see what it was because i wanted to get a few more to put in my other guitars.

I found it was the HB-103 so i put it all together and ordered 3 of them.

I get them a few weeks later and i installed the first one and it didnt sound the same, not sure how to explain how it sounded it just wasnt the same.

I also ordered an HB-101 and i installed it and it didnt sound god either.

I go and google the wiring for the Duncan pickups and i notice that the green is grounded and black is hot, all the DD pickups i ordered are backwards. The green is hot and open by itself and the black is tied to the shielded wire shrink wrapped.

Once i fixed the wiring putting the green to ground and the black as the hot all the pickups sound good.

I go on e-bay and i look at all the images people have posted of the DD pickups forsale and all of them have the black tied in with the ground.

Whats wrong with the DD pickups? why are they being installed wired wrong?

Im not complaining most of the pickups ive bought for like $15-$20. and sound great i just think that if the people who had them and replaced them tried them wired properly they may stick with em.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Are the Duncan Designed pickups the same wiring?

Green and Black are interchangeable as Hot, and is typically done if the pickups are out of phase with each other.

 

[BowerR64]

Re: Are the Duncan Designed pickups the same wiring?

So they arnt designed to be wired with the green and ground together and black as the hot?

I swear it sounded bad with the green as hot.

I should make a recording i guess.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Are the Duncan Designed pickups the same wiring?

They're designed so that if one pickup is wired with black to hot, green+bare to ground, red+white taped off, AND the other pickup (neck hum OR the middle single coil) is out of phase, that you can swap the green and black wires to correct the issue.

When it's properly wired and you lightly scrape the screws and solid poles of each coil with a metal screwdriver, the volume level of the noise should be the same. If it's not, then only one coil is on and the internal wiring is not following SD specs.

 

[Artie]

Re: Are the Duncan Designed pickups the same wiring?

Just to add to what Doc said: A pickup generates an AC signal, so it doesn't matter whether you use black or green for "hot". It only matters that all pups in the guitar follow the same convention.