Jack Problem

[mnbaseball91]

I suddenly can't seem to get any sound out of my Schecter. Tapping on the pups does nothing, poking at the exposed wires in the cavity does nothing, no buzzing or any noise at all. I unscrewed the jack and had a look: the clip that holds the cable tip in is touching the tip, but niether the tab soldered to hot or the tab soldered to ground are touching the tip. I was under the impression that they're supposed to, but niether looks like they could be easily bent to touch it. Are they supposed to touch the tip? If not, any other ideas what might be wrong?

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

OK, turns out that isn't the problem. Anyone know what might be causing it to not work?

 

[tone4days]

Re: Jack Problem

have you tried another guitar into your amp and your guitar into another amp to determine this is the problem?

could be a bad pot too

or a wire busted off from the jack to the pot

have you looked around the control cavity?

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

Yeah, I tried my Warmoth and everything works fine. I thought that I might have fried the volume pot, but I finished wiring, tapped the pickups and got sound, and closed it up. Next time I tried it, it didn't work but I hadn't done any more soldering. I don't see any loose wires either.

What really gets me is that when the cable is plugged in, even tapping on the tip with a metal screwdriver doesn't make any noise. It's as if something in the jack is shorting out the signal.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Jack Problem

Sounds like your tip and sleeve connections to the jack are touching either other effectively cancelling everything out. Hot to tip, ground to sleeve. Reheat the solder joints. Could just be cold and not making a good connection. Got a pic of it? Label the wires to (where they are coming from). That'll help.

Are your pickups active? Is the jack stereo or mono?

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

Pups are passive, jack is mono. I didn't mess with any of the stuff on the jack while I was working, but I'll try that anyway. Looks pretty solid to me. It's hard to see what's what, as this is the original factory wiring and they have heatshrink tubing going right up to the solder points, and all the wires seem to be randomly grouped. I'll just keep poking around.

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

I keep going back and looking at it, and I just don't see anything that looks problematic. I'm starting to think maybe I fried the volume pot. Is there a way to know for sure? Is this what would happen if it was fried?

 

[tone4days]

Re: Jack Problem

wire the pup straight to the jack is one way to see if the pot is bad

could the cable be bad that you have between the guitar and the amp?

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

Nope, used it with another guitar just fine. I'll try going right to the jack I guess.

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

I just went direct from the bridge pup to the jack, and it worked.

I've looked and looked and I just can't find any loose connections. The only ones that are even sort of questionable are the ones on the coil split, which is completely seperate from the rest of the loop. Even those, I'm positive they're making contact.

Being the novice that I am, I don't have a meter. Is it possible that if I blew the pot, it would be blown closed?

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

Got it. There was a ground wire going from the volume pot to ground that was inside a piece of heatshrink tubing so I didn't see it. Now it works, and it sounds fantastic. Looks cool too, with a white neck pickup and chrome covered bridge pickup.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Jack Problem

Where on the volume pot was it connected and where did it go to? That wasn't the bridge ground I hope.

Glad to hear you now have sound.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Jack Problem

glad its workin out for ya

cheers,
t4d

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Jack Problem

Where on the volume pot was it connected and where did it go to? That wasn't the bridge ground I hope.

Glad to hear you now have sound.

It was going from the tab that the hot came from to the back of the pot. It was hidden inside the tubing that was left over from the connection to the tone pot (that I did away with). Everything works perfectly now, and I managed to do it without making it any noisier. I highly recomend the Jazz/Custom combo, btw.

[Does this version of vB not have a "cheers" smiley?]