Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

[alessandroarzilli]

Hello everyone! I'm new to this forum, but have been playing guitars since 20 years more less.
I want to install a pair of Duncan Solar humbucker pickups into my Jackson Dinky JS22-7 guitar (1 volume knob, 1 tone knob, 3-way toggle switch)
I made some researches on the SD website and found the wiring diagram that would fit best, I think, which I am attaching in this message.
I'm not the best in the world when soldering, but I've done it a couple times so I think I can do this by myself once again.
The Duncan Solar pickups had been removed from a Solar 7 string guitar, they're in almost perfect condition.
Any recommendation ? Am I using the wrong wiring diagram? Thanks!!

 

[Travis]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

That schematic should work. You’ll get both Humbuckers full in the middle position, no splitting.

Good luck with your install and welcome to the forum.

 

[alessandroarzilli]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Hello Travis, thanks for answerring me so quickly! It's exactly the scenario I want to achieve: no splitting, no coil tapping, no fancy knobs, nothing, just plain neck pickup or bridge pickup or both. Thanks againm let'0s hope!!!

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

yep that diagram will work the way you want it to. Nothing funny. Just a standard neck, both, bridge on the selector. Standard volume and tone.

Some tips soldering.
tin the soldering iron tip, this means apply new solder before starting. If the solder cannot melt clean the iron it should be shiny and require no effort to melt

tin every stripped wire end for the pickups

if the soldering iron is black at the tip. Chances are it won't heat up to the temperature you need. Try stabbing into some brass looking steel wool or sand away any corrosion with some 400 or so grit sand paper. Don't do this much as I look at it as a learning experience for people to never have the iron tip black again. Once that plating goes on the irons tip every use the irons tip will deform afterwards. But if it's a cheap 10-20$ soldering iron like a basic hobby one I wouldn't be too heart broken. Now a high end Weller or Hakko if someone passed me back a soldering iron work station with a black tip I'd be very angry. Some people use a wet sponge every few solders to keep the iron clean while working but I like my brass steel wool. It was a dollar each with free shipping from China on ebay last time i bought some.

either way a clean soldering iron with some quality solder means you'll work fast and avoid issues such as over heating volume or tone controls or getting cold solder joints.

The best approach to taking the old pickups out and putting new ones in from the switch is to pull the old wires away with a hot soldering iron and possibly a pair of needle nose pliers. Cutting the wires short near the switch makes it difficult to pull out the old ones. The best place to pull the old wires out is near the contact as there is little holes and you want to do it on the outside. The old solder will liquify and you can pull the old wires out.

Make sure the red and white wires are soldered together. Put some tape or heat shrink over them.

for the green/bare wires if it's a really long stripped bare wire around the green put some heat shrink over it and have just enough for the bare and green wire to attach to the back of the pot

anywhere on the back of the pot is conductive. If your iron cannot melt a blob of solder on the back of the pot just solder to anywhere else on the pot.

Before putting the strings back on be sure to tap test the pickup(s) and or switch. Plug in the amp. Turn on a metallica amount of gain and distortion, turn the volume and tone up to 10 on the guitar and tap the tops of the pickups in all 3 switch positions. If you hear a grinding pop like sound when you tap a screw on the pickup in each position you've got sound so string it up. It's time to rock.

Good luck on your project

 

[Mincer]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Come back and let us know how this turns out!

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

The solars are just Duncan distortions with a regular ceramic right?

 

[Mincer]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

The solars are just Duncan distortions with a regular ceramic right?

Not made in the US.

 

[Blackie13]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

More like a Custom 5 I think...

 

[Xavier]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

The solars are just Duncan distortions with a regular ceramic right?

They are Alnico V pickups, equivalent to a 59 / C5 set, rather medium output.

 

[alessandroarzilli]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Hello everyone, thanks again for having answered me! I apologise for having let pass so much time, but things have been a little bit difficult lately, so I'll have the chance to start this job only in the next days.
So, the guitar is a Jackson JS22-7, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone, 3-way blade switch (I'm sorry, I wrote toggle switch in the previous message).
At the moment it has an original Jackson humbucker in the neck (just hot connector and bare wire) and a SD Invader in the bridge (red and white taped together, green soldered to the 3-way switch, black and bare soldered together to the back of the volume pot).
Now, as I said, I'm not totally new to soldering, but I'm not a professional for sure.
Shall I just replace the existing wiring with the ones from the two new Duncan Solars?
I'm a bit unsure about why, years ago, the guitar tech connected the green cable to the 3-way switch instead of the black one.
Also, why are some lugs of the 3-way switch soldered together?
thank you so much for your help, I'm attaching the correct diagram and some pictures of the cavity, so you could tell me if there's something wrong!

 

[alessandroarzilli]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Here I am again, these are the pictures of the inner cavity of my guitar.
So, what should I do?
Simply replace the cables andeave it all as it is, or make everything up from scratch?
I'm linking to the pictures from my Dropbox, since I can't seem to upload files bigger than 40MB here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4disrl79ffwz9u3/IMG_20200228_100549-01.jpeg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bh8zn6sopo4x2g6/IMG_20200228_100542-01.jpeg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d3ktkfghmgl97yh/IMG_20200228_100511-01.jpeg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mvi7h091e755zcd/IMG_20200228_100407-01.jpeg?dl=0

 

[nexion218]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Safest bet is to replicate the working setup. I wouldn't touch a thing aside from the wires coming fromthe PUPs and solder thw new ones in their place. Also, the conductor color codes may vary dependiong on maker and/or place of manufacture.

 

[Iron1]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Safest bet is to replicate the working setup. I wouldn't touch a thing aside from the wires coming fromthe PUPs and solder thw new ones in their place. Also, the conductor color codes may vary dependiong on maker and/or place of manufacture.

What he said.

I have 2 JS22-7s. One heavily modded, the other stock. So if you need pix of either cavity, let me know and I'll post some.

 

[Artie]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Just so you know, a guitar pickup does not have "absolute" polarity. So it doesn't matter if you use black/hot & green/gnd or green/hot & black/gnd, as long as you do both pups the same way.

 

[alessandroarzilli]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Hello everyone!
First of all, I really want to THANK YOU for all your comments and good advices, you guys helped me A LOT!
So, everything went well, I managed to change my Jackson JS22-7's humbuckers (factory neck humbucker + SD Invader bridge) to a new pair of Duncan Solar humbuckers.
I also made a full video of it on my YT channel, but I don't want to spam this forum so I'm not linking it.
Just wanted to say thank you once again!

 

[Iron1]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

I also made a full video of it on my YT channel, but I don't want to spam this forum so I'm not linking it.
Just wanted to say thank you once again!

I don't think I'd consider that spamming, but a public service for those of us interested in hearing how it turned out.

Can you at least put a link in your sig?

 

[Mincer]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Let us see your work- post your link! Thanks for the update!

 

[alessandroarzilli]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Hello locked down friends! So, finally, these are the videos I was talking about! I hope this isn't going to be considered as spam!

Changing my guitar's pickups: https://youtu.be/gwT-gWrIOok
Comparison Invader Vs Solar: https://youtu.be/2w3nm75XbBg

I liked the Solar more, beucase I found he Invader a little bit too extreme! I used my awesome cheap custom Jackson Dinky JS22-7 and the same set of strings! What do you think?
Again, thanks a lot for all the help you've given me!

 

[Iron1]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Great quality videos. Interesting that you swapped the Jackson bridge for a TOM style. I replaced mine with a Hipshot. How do you like the TOM over a standard hardtail?

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Attempting to install 2 Duncan Solar humbucker pickups

Wow. The Solar sounded soo muddy I could hardly stand to listen to it (in fact I couldn't listen to all of it). Solar was so fuzzy/muddy compared to the Invader which itself is a very "muddy" sounding pup. I could never possibly even think of trying the Solar myself.

Nice vid, however.