Bridge humbucker not working!

Thunder7

Thunder7

New member
I've put an AT-1 Dimarzio humbucker in my Strat. I've wired it per their instructions: black & white together, red to switch(hot) and green and bare to ground. But I'm not getting any sound from the pickup wired that way. If I wire it black and white to ground and tape off the green and bare I get sound but it buzzes if I touch the pickup mounting screwed and cuts out completely if a string touches the pickup pole pieces...any ideas? My neck and middle pickups work fine.
 
Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

got a multimeter?
lets set it for ohms

with the wires unattached

measure for continuity ( some ohms any ohms ) between
the red/black pair
the red/white
the red/green
the black/white
the black/green

some where you should see at least one "coil" on some pair
the other pair should read something too
as we know there are two coils
if you dont see the second coil you have a broken wire internally
and we will get to that

assuming you have 2 coils

say
wire A and wire B are one coil
Wire C and wire D are the other

connect the two at any point - say B and C
you have
A--B/C--D

connect it up see if it buzzes if so swap
C and D
now you have
A--B/D--C

should be good
 
Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

Ok I've checked the ohms on all the wire/wire pairs and I get reading from everything. I'm not following you on the wire connecting part at the end...how do I know which wires go to one and coil and which ones go to the other coil?
 
Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

Ok I just checked the instructions and I see what wires are which, let me try to wire it up and see what I get...
 
Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

The G > B > W > R sequence described in the OP is correct for DiMarzio.

The B/W to ground, G/Bare to nowhere experiment leaves one coil and the baseplate of the pickup ungrounded. Hence the buzzing.

Put everything back the way that it was the first time. Make certain that all of your solder joints are good. Make sure that nothing is fouling between the contacts of the selector switch.

It is difficult to comment further without photographs of your wiring.
 
Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

yea what Mr Funk said

if you tape off the green and bare
then connect the white/black pair to hot
you have, in effect, created a coil split(W/B pair to R) and removed the shielding(bare)


EDIT
Red to black should be one coil
white to green should be the other
the bare should be connected only to the baseplate of the pickup
 
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Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

Ok so I should rewire it to where; black and white wires are taped off together, green and bare go the ground and the red wire goes to the switch(hot)? Is that correct?
 
Re: Bridge humbucker not working!

^
Affirmative.

I suggest keeping the green and bare wires separate, just in case there are any phase issues with the other pickups.
 
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