could somebody explain this to a novice?

[midigods]

I'm just learning my way around the whole pickup wiring thing. I'm currently working on a simple swapping of 3 pickups on a Jackson Dinky. The 3 new pickups are all 4 conductor and I have each individually hard wired in series to the 5 way switch. I have the ground and bare wires soldered to the back of the volume pot (the exact same setup as the pickups I took out). However, I was getting no sound when I plugged it in.

To troubleshoot, I wired the hot from one pickup directly to the output jack and got a signal. Then I reconnected that hot wire back to the 5 way, and ran a jumper wire from the out of the 5 way directly to the output jack (bypassing the volume knob). Now I get sound from all 3 pickups, but I have to have the volume knob set to 5. If the volume is at 0 or 10, I get no sound. I'm sure this has something to do with the ground being connected to the volume pot. Just wondering why I only get sound when its at 5, and also wondering why my hot path from the 5 way to the to volume to the output jack isn't working anymore (I didn't change anything there. I may have fried the volume pot by overheating it with the soldering iron, not sure, have another on order). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Paul

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: could somebody explain this to a novice?

Now I get sound from all 3 pickups, but I have to have the volume knob turned set to 5. If the volume is at 0 or 10, I get no sound. I'm sure this has something to do with the ground being connected to the volume pot. Just wondering why I only get sound when its at 5, and also wondering why my hot path from the 5 way to the to volume to the output jack isn't working anymore? Paul

Seems to me that you have wired something up incorrectly.

The bare and green pickup grounding wires should be soldered to the pot chassis NOT to any of its terminals.

The apparently strange behaviour of the volume pot is due to the way its internal variable resistance track operates. The two extreme positions should be maximum and zero. On your present circuit, both ends are acting as zero. The half way point on the resistance track is the only point at which both your signal and ground circuits are complete - albeit, only partially.

Unsolder your ground cables and reconnect them to the casing of the volume pot.

 

[midigods]

Re: could somebody explain this to a novice?

the grounds from the pickups are soldered to the back of the volume pot. does the behavior of only getting a signal when the volume pot is at center imply that my volume pot is fried? thanks.

 

[super rad stuff]

Re: could somebody explain this to a novice?

what about your red and white wires? those aren't supposed t be grounded, but just soldered together(each pickup's set of red and white) and taped off separately.

 

[uOpt]

Re: could somebody explain this to a novice?

To debug things like this you want a set of crocodile clips.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: could somebody explain this to a novice?

I prefer alligator clips...just kidding. In addition to a polarity tester, alligator/crocodile clips are another thing you'll wonder how you did without.

 

[midigods]

Re: could somebody explain this to a novice?

yeah, the red and white are soldered together and taped off. I ordered some new push/pull pots and 2 mini switches, so I'll be rewiring it again shortly. We'll see how that goes.