Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

I don't think it's very well grounded, I couldn't even get it to move that near the surface of the pot. Here's some pictures of what I have now, hope these help!
Sorry if the pcituresu aren't as clear, I had to se an older camera.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

It looks possibly correct now.

Visually, the tone pot looks ok. The neck/mid volume looks ok, but there is a lot of solder on the back of the pot. The bridge volume looks correct, but all the ground connections on the back look like they are barely hanging on, and the bare strands from the neck/mid pickups are crossing awfully close to the lugs of the bridge volume pot. If those touch when you put it back in, it will short out the bridge volume - likely turning the bridge pickup off. The main positive/hot lead from the switch to the output also looks like it's barely hanging on, and it's exposed, so if it touches other parts of the switch, it could cause things to not work properly (but I commented on that before.)

Is there anything specific not working at this point?

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

It looks possibly correct now.

Visually, the tone pot looks ok. The neck/mid volume looks ok, but there is a lot of solder on the back of the pot. The bridge volume looks correct, but all the ground connections on the back look like they are barely hanging on, and the bare strands from the neck/mid pickups are crossing awfully close to the lugs of the bridge volume pot. If those touch when you put it back in, it will short out the bridge volume - likely turning the bridge pickup off. The main positive/hot lead from the switch to the output also looks like it's barely hanging on, and it's exposed, so if it touches other parts of the switch, it could cause things to not work properly (but I commented on that before.)

Is there anything specific not working at this point?

Thanks for the reply.

Okay, I will clean up the solder on the neck/mid pot. When I acquire some electrical tape I will cover the exposed parts of the bare strands, however that neck pickup will be getting replaced in about 3 weeks maybe (when the custom pickup is finished) and I will also tape together the red and white humbucker wires. I guess I also need to maybe get more solder onto the wires on the back of the bridge vol pot.

Which wire is the one "main positive/hot lead from the switch to the output" is that the jack tip?

And as for what isn't working, the bridge volume which you know and the 5 way switch which doesn't seem to actually do anything at the moment, it's not switching pickups. For example in the neck position all the pickups are active.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Hmm, the switch looks like it's wired correctly on the solder lugs/tabs. The only thing I can think of at this point is stray solder, like if solder ran down the lugs to the blade and are connecting everything together when it shouldn't.

Yeah, output = jack, so the positive lead is going to the 'tip' solder lug on that.

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Hmm, the switch looks like it's wired correctly on the solder lugs/tabs. The only thing I can think of at this point is stray solder, like if solder ran down the lugs to the blade and are connecting everything together when it shouldn't.

Yeah, output = jack, so the positive lead is going to the 'tip' solder lug on that.

Ah right, I'm not very handy with a soldering iron
So things to do is clean up the second pot, clean up the switch joints and tape up the exposed wires and tape together the red and white ones from the Humbucker. Okay cool.

Thanks again for all your help I'll go do those things and then lets see where it's at.

Just a wee idea. How problematic would it prove to install a bridge-on switch? Like a toggle switch for the bridge pickup to be turned on and off, allowing combinations like neck+bridge or all 3 but still having the standard Strat switching available.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Yeah you could do. It would insert on the wire between the bridge volume and the switch, and would connect to the current bridge spot on the 5-way and also the output spot on the 5-way where the tone connects. Might want to get what you have working and stable before modding further, however.

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Awesome, and yeah haha of course I should have said, "but that will have to wait until it's fixed and working" silly me.

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Okay, well it's not completely fixed but it's still better than it was.



And for your (beaubrummels) benefit I have videoed the testing through a small amp.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/im8liumeed2focb/IMG_2097.MOV

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Ok, from the demo video, what I got was:

1. Bridge (appeared to be single coil at first, but later it appeared both coils worked when combined with the middle.)
2. Bridge + Middle
3. Middle
4. Middle + Neck
5. Neck

One thing that seemed wrong was it appeared the tone control behaved like a volume, which tells me either cap is not working, the cap leg soldered to the pot lug is touching the pot casing/body before signal can pass through the cap.

Another thing I couldn't tell is if the independent volumes were behaving correctly. It appeared so, the bridge was off when the bridge volume was down and it appeared the middle/neck volume followed the middle volume knob.

Are there other specific things you are noticing that are not working as expected?

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Ok, from the demo video, what I got was:

1. Bridge (appeared to be single coil at first, but later it appeared both coils worked when combined with the middle.)
2. Bridge + Middle
3. Middle
4. Middle + Neck
5. Neck

One thing that seemed wrong was it appeared the tone control behaved like a volume, which tells me either cap is not working, the cap leg soldered to the pot lug is touching the pot casing/body before signal can pass through the cap.

Another thing I couldn't tell is if the independent volumes were behaving correctly. It appeared so, the bridge was off when the bridge volume was down and it appeared the middle/neck volume followed the middle volume knob.

Are there other specific things you are noticing that are not working as expected?

Ah right, so I want both coils to be working on position 1. On pos. 2 it does have both coils, by turning down the neck/mid volume that position could work like I want the first one to but I'd rather it would just work normally in that aspect.

The tone pot doesn't seem to be too bad, I can replace the old cap with one of the ones I foolishly soldered to the volumes. Also the tone pot hasn't been replaced, it's still a stock Squier one, would be a good idea to replace it with the same 500K fender pot I have as the bridge volume?

And as for things I have noticed, it's very noisy on all positions but when on the 1st (and second maybe, can't quite remember) the noise from the pickup isn't stopped by rolling down the bridge volume, where as when on positions 3,4 and 5 the noise is stopped (as would be expected) by rolling down the neck/mid volume.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Sounds like your single coils are making the noise. Is it always the same level of noise, or does it change as you move the guitar around? There may not be much you can do on that one. It doesn't look like there is any shielding on the pickguard. It appears there was some at one time and it was removed - I see just a sliver of some leftover silver foil. Shielding the pickguard might help a bit.

It doesn't seem possible that the bridge was actually working single coil on position 1 and humbucker in position 2. There isn't any coil split in that wiring - red and white are soldered together and taped off. I'm assuming the screwdriver just wasn't touching the poles strong enough to generate a sound.

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Sounds like your single coils are making the noise. Is it always the same level of noise, or does it change as you move the guitar around? There may not be much you can do on that one. It doesn't look like there is any shielding on the pickguard. It appears there was some at one time and it was removed - I see just a sliver of some leftover silver foil. Shielding the pickguard might help a bit.

It doesn't seem possible that the bridge was actually working single coil on position 1 and humbucker in position 2. There isn't any coil split in that wiring - red and white are soldered together and taped off. I'm assuming the screwdriver just wasn't touching the poles strong enough to generate a sound.

Yeah unfortunately I removed the shielding that came on the pickguard on the premises of replacing it with better quality foil, probably Copper. However, I completely forgot about it so yeah, that's kinda bad. So if I were to put strings on it (which I'm not at the moment) it would work as expected? That's good then!

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Sounds like your single coils are making the noise. Is it always the same level of noise, or does it change as you move the guitar around? There may not be much you can do on that one. It doesn't look like there is any shielding on the pickguard. It appears there was some at one time and it was removed - I see just a sliver of some leftover silver foil. Shielding the pickguard might help a bit.

It doesn't seem possible that the bridge was actually working single coil on position 1 and humbucker in position 2. There isn't any coil split in that wiring - red and white are soldered together and taped off. I'm assuming the screwdriver just wasn't touching the poles strong enough to generate a sound.

Yeah unfortunately I removed the shielding that came on the pickguard on the premises of replacing it with better quality foil, probably Copper. However, I completely forgot about it so yeah, that's kinda bad. So if I were to put strings on it (which I'm not at the moment) it would work as expected? That's good then!

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

I would shield the pickguard and see how much affect it has. Then go from there.

 

[Liquid State]

Re: Help with wiring! 2 volume, 1 tone HSS

Hey, just to let you know, I did shield the pickguard, the custom pickup arrived and I installed it and everything works great! The volumes behave as they should and it sounds really nice Thank you so much for your help "beaubrummels" you've been great!