grounding-how to not suck at it

[mig50]

any time i attempt to wire any of my guitars, i end up with terrible grounds that result in tons of excess noise. no matter how many times i try to ground/reground the wires, i can never seem to get a good solid ground.

any pointers that don't require me to purchase a multimeter or any additional equipment?

 

[rspst14]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

Spend $10 on a 40 watt soldering iron at Radio Shack. Anything less makes it more difficult to solder to pots. Before I upgraded to a 40 watt iron, I had problems with the solder balling up and then falling off when I would solder grounds to the back of pots. Once I got a hotter iron, it worked perfectly. You might also want to take some sandpaper and lightly sand the pot casing before you try to solder to it.

Ryan

 

[mig50]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

i usually sand the pots down before i ground, but i'm using a 23 watt iron. perhaps i'll try a stronger one.

 

[rspst14]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

Yeah, 23 watts is pretty low for guitar work. I would definitely upgrade to a 40 watt iron, Radio Shack has them for less than $10.

Ryan

 

[Davey]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

well.. i got a buzz problem, but i believe it comes from crappy cavity shielding. i'm using a 20W beaten up soldering iron and dont have any problems with it.. comes with practice i guess

 

[rspst14]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

Is the shielding done with paint or foil?

Ryan

 

[Blueline]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

Okay - here i go giving away some trade secrets (like anyone actually cares what i ahve to say)
here goes
1) definitely sand the post and the place on the bridge where you're going to solder
pots are often coated with an oil like film that oddly enough prevents solder from sticking (kind of a dumb thing to coat pots with) - sand em real good dill their flat looking
this goes for the bridge too, where you're going to be grounding (this applies more to me because i'm building and establishing the initial gorund point - but this ground point is very important and may need to be redone
its easier on a tele becasue the bridg eplate is righ there
on tune-o-matic guitars (mine at least) the bridge is grounded to one fo the posts inside the guitar -kinda hard to repari so its gotta be done right hte first time
pots can get cooked from too high a heat gun, but 40 shoudl be okay
for grounding to brdiges I use a 2 setting soldering gun thats 30 years old - the kind tv repairmen used ot use
its the only thing that gets the bridges hot enough for the solder to stick and stick good
i actually double ground my bridge so even my singlecoil guitars have very little hum
as for the pots - they need heat for the solder to stick
if you're concerned about too much heat - use a heat sink

cheers
2) use a high

 

[rspst14]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

I was going to post a separate topic for this, but maybe Blueline can help. I've been told by a good luthier that copper shielding foil is completely useless unless you ground the foil to the output jack's ground. He said that all grounds should be soldered to the same place, with the exception of the shielding, which should be grounded on the output jack. I've never heard this before, is it true? I always thought that it didn't matter where you grounded the shielding foil, as long as you avoided ground loops by soldering all grounds to the same place?

Ryan

 

[Imp]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

my grounds always collect together at, or very near, the output jack.. i just feel better that way in case one fails

the other thing is - what pickups and amp are you using? it could be your amp putting the buzz on you!

 

[mig50]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

nah, i've tried different amps as well as different guitars. the buzz always goes away when i touch something in the circuit (pots, wires, etc) so it's definitely a ground problem.

thanks for the suggestion though.

oh, by the way, i picked up a 40 watt iron from radio shack earlier. i'm gonna try it out this weekend and hope it solves my problem. thanks for that suggestion as well.

 

[Pandemonium]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

I don't know how much buzz you're talking about but if it goes away when you touch something in the circuit just make sure the bridge or stop is grounded and it shouldn't be much of a problem. If the cavity's not shielded doing that would help a lot, and yes, you do have to run a ground to the shielding.

 

[Artie]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

. . . the buzz always goes away when i touch something in the circuit (pots, wires, etc) so it's definitely a ground problem.

Actually, this shows that its definitely not a grounding problem. I can't remember, off the top of my head, the website that describes this in more detail, (GuitarNuts, maybe), but basically, here's whats happening:

Your body is mostly made of water - an excellent electrical conductor and antenna. So, your body is picking up all kinds of stray AC and RF fields in the air. You hold the guitar close to your body, and transmit all that electrical noise onto the pickups. When you touch metal on the guitar, it "grounds" you, thus squelching the noise.

So, you can't really improve that ground any. You will probably need to improve the sheilding between you and the guitar. (Similar to grounding, but not quite the same thing.)

Artie

 

[rspst14]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

Actually, this shows that its definitely not a grounding problem. I can't remember, off the top of my head, the website that describes this in more detail, (GuitarNuts, maybe), but basically, here's whats happening:

Your body is mostly made of water - an excellent electrical conductor and antenna. So, your body is picking up all kinds of stray AC and RF fields in the air. You hold the guitar close to your body, and transmit all that electrical noise onto the pickups. When you touch metal on the guitar, it "grounds" you, thus squelching the noise.

So, you can't really improve that ground any. You will probably need to improve the sheilding between you and the guitar. (Similar to grounding, but not quite the same thing.)

Artie

Artie, what's your take on the shielding issue? I posted a separate thread about it so others might see it.

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=20849

Thanks.

Ryan

 

[mig50]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

Actually, this shows that its definitely not a grounding problem. I can't remember, off the top of my head, the website that describes this in more detail, (GuitarNuts, maybe), but basically, here's whats happening:

Your body is mostly made of water - an excellent electrical conductor and antenna. So, your body is picking up all kinds of stray AC and RF fields in the air. You hold the guitar close to your body, and transmit all that electrical noise onto the pickups. When you touch metal on the guitar, it "grounds" you, thus squelching the noise.

So, you can't really improve that ground any. You will probably need to improve the sheilding between you and the guitar. (Similar to grounding, but not quite the same thing.)

Artie

hmm...interesting. the only reason i mentioned that is because in the past i've been able to alleviate this problem by re-grounding. i'm hoping this is the case again so that i don't have to shield everything.

 

[mig50]

Re: grounding-how to not suck at it

huh...so it turns out my ground issues were stemming from a bad power strip. go figure.