Myaccount876
Amira-Maker
Re: Catalog of shields and grounds in an electric guitar
Wear rubber bunny slippers first!
Wear rubber bunny slippers first!
Catalog of shields and grounds in an electric guitar
- Thread starter uOpt
- Start date
Dr. Jimmy
New member
Re: Catalog of shields and grounds in an electric guitar
So if I follow the guitarnuts approach to shielding and star grounding when using a Cool Rails pickup, do I attach both the green wire and the shield wire to the ground point? Their website says to attach the green wire to the ground point and the shield wire to the back of the vol. pot. Also it says to attach each green wire seperately and not wind them together and attach as one, is that correct?
So if I follow the guitarnuts approach to shielding and star grounding when using a Cool Rails pickup, do I attach both the green wire and the shield wire to the ground point? Their website says to attach the green wire to the ground point and the shield wire to the back of the vol. pot. Also it says to attach each green wire seperately and not wind them together and attach as one, is that correct?
uOpt
Something Cool
Re: Catalog of shields and grounds in an electric guitar
I do not believe in any of these star ground or any other special grounding methods.
As far as I have experienced guitar electronics you just connect everything that is supposed to be mass (or ground in fuzzy terms) with solid wire and solid solder points. Doesn't matter whether you build circles or mazes or what. If there is strong physical contact no solder is needed, e.g. a grounded pot screwed into a metal plate grounds the plate good.
I do not believe in any of these star ground or any other special grounding methods.
As far as I have experienced guitar electronics you just connect everything that is supposed to be mass (or ground in fuzzy terms) with solid wire and solid solder points. Doesn't matter whether you build circles or mazes or what. If there is strong physical contact no solder is needed, e.g. a grounded pot screwed into a metal plate grounds the plate good.
Liko
New member
Re: Catalog of shields and grounds in an electric guitar
Star grounding is most effective when the cavity isn't shielded; the ground loop acts as an antenna for EMI, which will bleed into the signal side of the circuit (it is all one big circuit after all), so if EMI can't get to the loop, it can't affect the signal circuit. As shielding is the first thing you should do anyway, it is kind of redundant.
One reason I still like star-grounding when you're doing a complete rewire is that the method avoids having you solder stuff to pot shells. Pot shell soldering good soldering technique and equipment, which not all tinkerers have. You have to get on, let the solder flow, and get off as quickly as possible without ending up with a cold join, and the pot shell, having significantly more metal than the pot's terminals, is a big heatsink working against your efforts to localize the heating. Spend too much time heating the work and you'll burn out the pot. I've even dealt with some cheaper pots where the wiper post was anchored through the pot shell and was exposed on the back side. One errant drip of molten solder in that gap and your pot is frozen in place.
However, there's star-grounding, then there's octopus-grounding. Not every component needs a direct path to the grounding nexus; it's fine to take one grounded terminal and wire a lead to a second grounded terminal. By running an individual lead from every individual grounded terminal back to the grounding hub, you increase the number and length of the wires you have to stuff back in the control cavity, you increase time and cost spent on the wiring job, and when you think about it, you still have parallel paths to ground; they're just longer, but not by enough to make a real difference in the math.
Star grounding is most effective when the cavity isn't shielded; the ground loop acts as an antenna for EMI, which will bleed into the signal side of the circuit (it is all one big circuit after all), so if EMI can't get to the loop, it can't affect the signal circuit. As shielding is the first thing you should do anyway, it is kind of redundant.
One reason I still like star-grounding when you're doing a complete rewire is that the method avoids having you solder stuff to pot shells. Pot shell soldering good soldering technique and equipment, which not all tinkerers have. You have to get on, let the solder flow, and get off as quickly as possible without ending up with a cold join, and the pot shell, having significantly more metal than the pot's terminals, is a big heatsink working against your efforts to localize the heating. Spend too much time heating the work and you'll burn out the pot. I've even dealt with some cheaper pots where the wiper post was anchored through the pot shell and was exposed on the back side. One errant drip of molten solder in that gap and your pot is frozen in place.
However, there's star-grounding, then there's octopus-grounding. Not every component needs a direct path to the grounding nexus; it's fine to take one grounded terminal and wire a lead to a second grounded terminal. By running an individual lead from every individual grounded terminal back to the grounding hub, you increase the number and length of the wires you have to stuff back in the control cavity, you increase time and cost spent on the wiring job, and when you think about it, you still have parallel paths to ground; they're just longer, but not by enough to make a real difference in the math.
