Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

[Casey Jones]

Hey there,

I'm experiencing an issue with this brand new hot rails pickup... I have installed it into a PRS Santana (with new pickup ring) going to a coil tap. The wiring on the whole guitar is working perfectly, except for the hot rails pickup in the regular position. When the pot is pulled out the split coil works no problem, but when pushed down in regular humbucker mode I get very little sound (as in volume up with distortion on and then I get a faint signal). My gut tells me that there is something wrong with the pickup because there are no other issues with the wiring whatsoever, plus I rewired the pickup to a regular 500k pot and got the same result as with the coil tap pressed down. So I went back to the coil tap split mode for the time being so that I have something in the neck position. I have Green and bare to ground and black to side lug of the volume pot (whatever it's called, it's in the right spot), and red and white going to coil tap mechanism and so on, as shown in the diagram.

I tried calling Duncans customer service and stayed on hold for an hour in pos 1 until I finally hung up.

Thanks for any help I get here. :notworthy:notworthy

Cheers. :banana::banana::banana::banana:

 

[jeremy]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

do you have a multimeter? if so check the dc resistance of green to red/white, black to red/white, and green to black

 

[Casey Jones]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

With meter set to 20k (ohms) I got:

Green to Red/white = 0
Black to Red/white = 4.97
Green to Black = 19.7

 

[jeremy]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

well something is wrong there. green to black is your series (full output) and that's the one that's not giving you sound. check your wiring at the mini switch and the red/white connection

 

[CTN]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

With meter set to 20k (ohms) I got:

Green to Red/white = 0
Black to Red/white = 4.97
Green to Black = 19.7

that's odd indeed.

green to red should give you around 8k, same for black to white.
The black to red/white reading you posted is indicative of a possible wiring issue - parallel wiring for the hot rails should read about 4k between black+green and red+white.

can you post a picture of your wiring or a diagram your circuit is following?

 

[Casey Jones]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

I can send an actual pic in a bit, but used exactly page 2 's version of the regular split coil wiring. Exactly. I did it a couple of times. Volume / Tone / switch / everything else works perfectly.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/electric/humbuckers/501005-110.pdf

 

[Casey Jones]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

Like I said, I rewired the pickup to a regular pot, (checked and double checked), then went back to he coil tap pot (checked and rechecked) and got the same results.

 

[Casey Jones]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

Since I have a zero reading from green to red/white, and all my other wiring / pickups / electronics work, could that be indicating that there is something wrong with the pickup?

 

[jeremy]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

yes but if you have something from green to black then the whole circuit seems to be fine. check your wiring. or unsolder everything, pull the pup from the guitar and give us readings between all the wires. so red/black, red/white, red/ green and hell red/bare too. do this for all the colors. it is possible, but very unlikely, that the pup is wired wrong.

 

[CTN]

Re: Hot Rail Pickup Only working in split coil mode!!!

what jeremy said.

and if all else fails, get a return/exchange.