Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

frpax

frpax

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OK Gurus!

Pearly Gates Bridge pup. 5 colored leads. NO COIL SPLITTING.
Red & White get soldered together and taped off.
Green and bare are soldered to the back of the Bridge Volume pot.
Black goes to the #1 lug (#3 is bent back and soldered to the back of the pot).

This is what I found on a Duncan diagram, and I did this.
But what I'm getting, soundwise, from the pickup is EXTREMELY thin and tinny sounding. It's horrible.

I'm rewiring a 335 style guitar and cramming all this crap into the f-hole is a PITA.
 
Re: Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

One way to get a warmer response if it's too bright and uses 500K pots is to step to 250K pots.
 
Re: Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

SeaRefractor said:
One way to get a warmer response if it's too bright and uses 500K pots is to step to 250K pots.
Click to expand...
I get that.
But what I've got going on is WAY wrong. It's as if something is wired wrong, but I've double checked everything.

Is it possible that, while cramming all the pots and whatnot into the f-hole that something might now be touching something that it shouldn't?
 
Re: Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

Possible that a wire (or 2 really) have been wrongly attached during construction. A short while back I would have said that was impossible, but the instances of this occurring have been growing.

What it sounds like from your description is that the 2 coils are out of phase with each other.
 
Re: Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

If you can test the pickup with a meter, that would be best. But in the mean time you can make sure both coils are working by tapping on them with a screwdriver when plugged in (and the amp pretty quiet).
 
Re: Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

You did everything right. But there's a problem. Somewhere, in the deep dark recesses of my old memory, I seem to recall that some PG's had a coil wired backwards. So you need to do this, (and it requires a meter): Connect the meter leads, + lead to black pup wire, - lead to white pup wire. Meter on its lowest DC voltage range. Bring a screwdriver up against the stud coil. As you do that, you should see a very small positive dc voltage. Probably only a few millivolts. Then, yank the screwdriver away. You should see a slightly larger DC negative voltage. If you get that, then that coil is ok. If not, then that coil is wired backwards.

Now do the same test for the screw coil. + lead of the meter on the red wire, and - lead of the meter on the green wire. Again, you should get a small positive voltage as you bring the screwdriver up against the screw coil, and a slightly larger negative voltage as you yank the screwdriver away. If you don't get that, then that coil was wired backwards.

You need to do those tests before we can go any farther.

Make sense? :)
 
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Re: Converting 5 colored leads to a vintage ground and hot

Yes, you've got series wiring for sure......but I'm still thinking OOP, which would read the same K but have a very weak signal due to almost full cancellation.

Try wiring swapping 2 coil leads.....

so either:

Swap white and black soldered positions

or

Swap green and red.
 
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