i have made an epic fail....

[Left_Hand_Strat]

right.

it's like half past midnight here so earliest i can upload pics is like tomorrow evening....

my Vintage V100 was the victim of a pickup change tonight. I swapped out the bridge Wilkinson for a MightMite Motherbucker (Yes Funk i know you told me not too but i had to hear it! ).

anyways, i just finish changing it over when i managed to break my dad's soldering Iron, thank **** him and mum went out tonight and that dad is quite drunk because i'll go out and buy a new one tomoz.... so the mistake I made, whatever it was, now has to wait a while...

I wire it up, plug in, all knobs to ten on the bridge, and BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz....

is all i get, to me this is a major earthing fault. now the black wire is the Hot on the Mother, the white and the Bare wire are soldered for the ground...

now there is a Blue and a red wire for coil split, which i didn't attach as the Wilkinson stock only had a Hot and ground (yeah, work that out! im puzzled too...) so anyways, i soldered that white and bare together for the earth per instructions given (i might have that wrong...) and i soldered it to the MIDDLE LUG of the volume pot where the stock pup was attached, then there was this really tough and unsolderble Lump holding a bunch of other wires where i got the Hot (in this case of the stock it was BLUE) and i soldered the Mother Hot wire to the lump too, but to jut the end of another wire so i could get hold...

Im confused and if anyone understands WT* i am on about after all this I will be amazed, I'm tired P***** off to the hills with the guitar and had some crap news on the phone so sorry if i seem too assertive.....

many thanks bro's....

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Are you getting ANY sound out of the pup?

I've never heard about grounding to a lug. Grounding should be done on the back of the pot. I could be wrong; but I've never seen a guitar that wasn't grounded there.

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

yeah i pluck the strings i get a noise, albeit half the volume it should be or less, swapped to the neck pup on the switch and crystal clear.... I wonder if i wired the ground and the hot the wrong way round....

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

yeah i pluck the strings i get a noise, albeit half the volume it should be or less, swapped to the neck pup on the switch and crystal clear.... I wonder if i wired the ground and the hot the wrong way round....

If you did that, there'd be no buzz. It'd just be out of phase. Real nasally and wah like.

If I'm reading what you typed right, you soldered the option (split) wires together with the ground?

Go ahead and list what colored wires are what per the instructions given.

Hot: _______

Options: _______

Ground: _______

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

my Vintage V100 was the victim of a pickup change tonight. I swapped out the bridge Wilkinson for a MightMite Motherbucker (Yes Funk i know you told me not too but i had to hear it! ).

All that you needed to do was wire the pickup to a jack socket, plug into an amp and dangle the pickup over the strings. This would have provided a rough idea of how it might sound. You could even have tried this crude test over more than one guitar.
:chairshot

so anyways, i soldered that white and bare together for the earth per instructions given (i might have that wrong...) and i soldered it to the MIDDLE LUG of the volume pot where the stock pup was attached, then there was this really tough and unsolderble Lump holding a bunch of other wires where i got the Hot (in this case of the stock it was BLUE) and i soldered the Mother Hot wire to the lump too, but to jut the end of another wire so i could get hold.

You have soldered the pickup in backwards. Hot (black) should go to the central lug of the volume pot. Ground (white and bare) should go to the chassis of the pot. :doh:

Confuscius, he say, beer and soldering do not mix. :nana:

 

[formula73]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

All that you needed to do was wire the pickup to a jack socket, plug into an amp and dangle the pickup over the strings. This would have provided a rough idea of how it might sound. You could even have tried this crude test over more than one guitar.
:chairshot



You have soldered the pickup in backwards. Hot (black) should go to the central lug of the volume pot. Ground (white and bare) should go to the chassis of the pot. :doh:

Confuscius, he say, beer and soldering do not mix. :nana:

Formula73 can attest to the truth of Confuscius statement.

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Guys, Funk was right, wires the wrong way round.

thanks for the replies.

Now the earth buzz has gone down but is predominantly still there, Now, i use the bridge pickup i get a nice sound from it, much like a strat single coil sound but the volume is quite weak, and everything is maxed out on the knobs..... something wrong you reckon?

i might be better off saving the mighty mite for a strat...

 

[bluesbend]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

This is all part of learning. You'll make other mistakes along the way, I still do from time to time.

We're here for you.

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

This is all part of learning. You'll make other mistakes along the way, I still do from time to time.

We're here for you.

thanks man

and you guys can bet im going to do your heads in this year with all the learning im doing :lol:

 

[Mr 9finger]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Soldering in new pickups really is a skill best practiced. It took me a few tries to get it right and I still mess up sometimes. Just keep at it and you'll be doing it in your sleep in no time!

Couple things I've found helpful are having 2 irons if yours isn't adjustable for heat. One for the wires and the other at a higher temp w/ a wider tip for the back of the pots. The other is, keep the control cavity as tidy as possible. Less clutter is easier to work in and less chance of burning other wires.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

What did you do with the joined together conductors? They ought to be insulated to prevent unintentional coil splitting. Properly wired, that pickup should be a complete mutha.

 

[LesStrat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

I couldn't have soldered it better myself!

 

[IanBallard]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Well, at least you started out with relatively cheap gear. I mean, it's like learning how to drive a stick. You don't take a Ferrari out to learn how to shift gears and use a clutch, you use a piece of junk Honda or something. Same with soldering pickups. It takes practice and patience and using good forums like this one to get your stuff right.

Just keep it up. You'll be fine.

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

What did you do with the joined together conductors? They ought to be insulated to prevent unintentional coil splitting. Properly wired, that pickup should be a complete mutha.

you mean the Red and Blue or do you mean that white one and the bare one you soldered together?

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Well, at least you started out with relatively cheap gear. I mean, it's like learning how to drive a stick. You don't take a Ferrari out to learn how to shift gears and use a clutch, you use a piece of junk Honda or something. Same with soldering pickups. It takes practice and patience and using good forums like this one to get your stuff right.

Just keep it up. You'll be fine.

your logic is perfect.

I believe the phrase 'don't try running before you can walk' comes to mind

but yeah, it is good practice.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

you mean the Red and Blue or do you mean that white one and the bare one you soldered together?

Red/blue.

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Red/blue.

they are not being used.

i chopped that soldered together joint on all the wires cause the Iron i originally used was old a feeble..... so i had to start with a clean joint.

at the moment, i have jut twisted the red blue together (no metal connecting, but the PVC is touching. and they have been bent upwards as i am not using them...

 

[IanBallard]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

they are not being used.

i chopped that soldered together joint on all the wires cause the Iron i originally used was old a feeble..... so i had to start with a clean joint.

at the moment, i have jut twisted the red blue together (no metal connecting, but the PVC is touching. and they have been bent upwards as i am not using them...

Without sounding daft, I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you want to wire the pickup in SERIES (normal humbucking), one of the signal (output) wires from one coil, needs to be connected to one of the grounds of the other, just as one of the output wires from one coil goes to the output lead of the switch/pot and the remaining ground goes to ground. So if you twist the two together w/o any metal touching, you will not have a series circuit. Maybe I'm misunderstanding though.

 

[Left_Hand_Strat]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

Without sounding daft, I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you want to wire the pickup in SERIES (normal humbucking), one of the signal (output) wires from one coil, needs to be connected to one of the grounds of the other, just as one of the output wires from one coil goes to the output lead of the switch/pot and the remaining ground goes to ground. So if you twist the two together w/o any metal touching, you will not have a series circuit. Maybe I'm misunderstanding though.

is a Les Paul style guitar normally wired in series? rather than in parallel ??

if it is in series, then i need to know what to do next.... cause tbh i hav not got a clue about electrics, although i knew enough (or it seems not :lol: ) to have a go at changing the pickup.

at the moment the Mighty Mite sounds like only one coil is working.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: i have made an epic fail....

at the moment, the Mighty Mite sounds like only one coil is working.

There may be a very simple explanation for this. :nana: