Help with first soldering/wiring job?

[doozy]

So I took on an ambitious project for my first soldering job, and it ended up being a bit more than I could chew. Here's a quick breakdown of what I am doing:

-Upgrading pickups in a Peavey Raptor EXP (HSS strat) to a Little 59' neck, a Custom Stack+ mid, and P-Rail bridge with Triple Shot mounting ring.
-Little '59 neck wired to a push-pull switch for Parallel setting on humbucker, then wired into another push-pull switch for "always on" setting (so when switch is pulled the neck is on in positions 1 and 2 of the pickup selector switch).
-Output of the guitar wired to a third push-pull switch that acts as a kill switch. (ie. When switch is pulled, it turns off the guitar for easy guitar muting in between songs on stage.)
-For the pots I'm using CTS 500k push-pulls because I want that brighter tone. And I'm using a .0033uf mylar film caps on both tone knobs.

I did a lot of research and I believe that I had the wiring correct. Attachment 1 is the diagram I drew myself, excuse the messy handwriting. (I edited this in paint to add some correction I made as I went, since the paper is now probably illegible with all the notes I was taking on it haha.)

Anyway, yesterday I finished soldering everything up, and it was making a lot of noise when plugged into the amp. Putting my hand on the bridge didn't silence the buzz so I knew it was something to do with the bridge ground not working. I realized I had soldered it and the guitar jack ground to the tone pot instead of the volume pot by mistake, so I resoldered them to the correct spot. But now when I plug the guitar in there is zero sound. So I'm not sure what is going on.

I had a lot of issues with the solder, so I'm wondering if that could be the problem. No matter what I did, the solder came out looking dull and gray. I'm also worried I might have damaged the triple shot motherboard. I've watched at least 20 "How to" videos, and do exactly the way they tell me to, at exactly the temps they recommend, but it consistently comes out looking like crap. My tip won't stay tinned, one of my tips even corroded so badly that it started to eat itself. And that's just in about 5 hours of soldering work. I know I got a cheap soldering iron but it should at least be able to survive a single project I'd think...

But when I had the ground wired incorrectly to the tone pot, I was able to test the humbuckers and they all made noise when I touched a screwdriver to them. There was just also a ton of background buzz. So it's weird to me that moving the ground broke the circuit somehow.

Also excuse the mess of wiring, I should have gone with thinner wires, I did not realize how thick these cloth ones were.

Edit: Finished! The problem was a cheap soldering iron tip and cheap solder. Also fixed some of the wiring. But it turned out sounding great!!

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[Chistopher]

It doesn't matter whether you ground to the tone or volume pot, just so long as both of them are grounded. Your issue to me, at least one of them is, that you didn't ground your bridge and when you tried to fix it, you ended up accidentally grounding your signal wire to the volume pot. Do you have a picture showing your volume pot connections better?

 

[doozy]

It doesn't matter whether you ground to the tone or volume pot, just so long as both of them are grounded. Your issue to me, at least one of them is, that you didn't ground your bridge and when you tried to fix it, you ended up accidentally grounding your signal wire to the volume pot. Do you have a picture showing your volume pot connections better?

Sorry, it's really difficult to get pictures that clearly show what is going on, with how thick the cloth wires and humbucker wires are, and especially with how the switch wiring is right above the pot connections.

So I know what you are saying but it's just a weird leftover wiring from the Peavey jack. The blue wire goes both to the output and to ground. You can see it splits out at the end of the blue wire, with the ground soldered to ground, and the white wire that peeks out soldered to my output (I accidentally broke the solder on the signal wires connection trying to get this pic so they aren't together at the moment, but when things are finalized I would probably tape the connection as well.)

As far as the other volume pot connections go, I tried my best to get a clear shot, but the wires and my phone don't really want to cooperate, so this is the best I could get. (Picture 2 was taken before picture 1, the signal wire from C2 was wrapping around the other direction in pic 2, and I changed it to the other side in pic 1.)

 

[Mincer]

Also, it is a good time to mention the Pickup Installation Course. It is free, and it was done really well. It is a must for people who haven't done this kind of thing before.

 

[Teleplayer]

Your solder looks like grey and dirty because you are probably heating the solder too long. People with experience will avoid this problem because they apply fresh solder every time they make a connection, and they only need to heat it briefly due to their experience. If you heat the solder several times, the "rosin" in the solder dries out and it allows air to oxidise any contaminents in the joint. It can be a real problem because it prevents the solder from flowing where it needs to make a good quality joint.

However there is a second aspect you can pay attention to, to greatly reduce the problem. You need to keep the soldering iron tip very clean. You should use either a damp sponge or a damp rag, and you should wipe the soldering iron tip prior to making every joint. It will remove any burnt rubbish and as much of the old dry solder as possible. Then you apply fresh solder every time you make a joint. The solder includes the rosin in the core, so the fresh solder introduces more rosin to the joint. This allows more working time and your joints will be better quality and more shiny.

Another tip is to apply "Tinning" to both the terminal and wire before you attempt to make the joint. "Tinning" means briefly coating them in fresh solder. It gives an advantage because the soldering process is actually quicker and more precise by doing it in two steps. It means you are less likely to overheat the components and the solder so you can avoid some troubles.

 

[Spaghetti Bolo]

How cheap a soldering iron are we talking here? Being brutally honest, that solder work is unacceptable.

 

[Supernautilus]

I would also invest in a solder sucker if you plan on doing more soldering. It quickly removes old solder from joints and lets you start fresh. I can't speak for everyone but I personally find it an invaluable tool.

 

[Chistopher]

Honestly if you want to get good at soldering, modifying a cheap guitar pedal or building a kit is the easiest way to build that skill. It's a lot easier to solder a PCB than the point-to-point wiring of a guitar. Modifying a pedal has the advantage that it's easy to isolate your issue if your changing one component out at a time, because the moment it stops working as intended, you have narrowed your issue down to a single component.

What you have now, there's likely to be more than issue. Cold solder joints, weak connections, plus they are hard for you to see with those big switches in the way. For now, I'd say you best bet is to restart from scratch, as painful as it is to say it, because to be honest, most of your solder joints need work. Don't be too downhearted though, your second solder job will probably be a lot better than your first. The most important things to remember are get a good iron, not necessarily expensive, just not the cheapest one. Clean your iron often, look up pictures of what a good and bad solder joint look like, don't move the wire until the solder is completely cool (2-3 seconds, but don't be in a rush especially because you are just starting). Maybe for now start out the triple shot (which doesn't look damaged) and wire it directly to a jack to make sure it works. Then wire the full guitar with a simple 5 way switch and all your pots, then if that works add the kill switch, then if that works add the neck on switch, then after that you can rewire the '59 for series/parallel. You don't want to introduce a lot of potential points of failure all at once.