Broken JB?

[Jagor]

Hi guys!

So, lately I've noticed that my JB sounds kind of thin, nasaly and bass lacking compared to my neck pickup (Jazz). This became more obvious when I would roll of the tone pot on my guitar - barely any signal remained, as if I rolled the volume pot almost all the way down. The tone pot in combination with the other pickup works fine. I took a resistance reading of the JB and it showed infinity (1). The pickup was wired to work in standard series wiring. After measuring the resistance on individual coils the one with the screws showed what I suppose to be normal value, while the coil with the slugs shows infinity. The pickup is about 10 years old and has been used a fair amount. What baffles me is how is it possible that it still worked (even decently so under distortion) if there is a wire break, suggested by the infinity reading on one of the coils and especially since the coils were wired in series? Any ideas what might have happened and if it is repairable?

Many thanks!

 

[Mincer]

Re: Broken JB?

Welcome to the forum!

Sorry you JB seems a little sick. It certainly shouldn't read infinity. Have you tried wiring it directly to the jack, to confirm a problem with the pickup itself?

 

[Jagor]

Re: Broken JB?

Thanks for the welcome!

Yes, I tried wiring it directly to the output jack with no change in sound so the problem is definitely with the pickup itself.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Broken JB?

Gotcha. Well, SD can repair it if you don't see any obvious breaks that you can fix yourself.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Broken JB?

If you're careful, you could try reading the resistance of the slug coil directly (you'll probably have to loosen some of the coil tape). It's possible that the issue is with the 4-conductor cable rather than the coil itself.

 

[Jagor]

Re: Broken JB?

I have already tried that. I took the pickup apart to gain access to individual coils, cut the wires right at the start/end of the wind. The resistance still shows infinity for the slug coil. I'm afraid sending the pickup to SD for repair might not be affordable for me because of the shipping costs. Oh well, I suppose I could use it as a single coil. Can anyone explain how it worked while the coils were wired in series if one of them has a break in the wind? As I see it the screw coil had the ground wire and the start wire to ''work'' with, the end wire goes to the dead? slug coil. Can it work that way? Also, the pickup did cancel hum, in that aspect it was fully functional. How is this possible if one coil is dead?

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Broken JB?

You have an open circuit in one coil. You still get sound because the windings are capacitativly coupled.


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