Hello everyone, nice fourm. I recently bought a dimebucker for my Dean VXT flying V. The guitar currently has 2 Zebra humbuckers and I am unsure as how to install the dimebucker with the wiring diagram provided in the box. I have searched high and low for a diagram of the sorts and can't find anything. I was wondering if anyone would be able to point me in the right direction. I have a fond knowledge of soldering, as I used to work in a production plant soldering various circuitry board and wires and such. I plan on keeping the one zebra pickup at the neck because it sounds pretty much ok and it has a nice tone on the clean channel. I have a digital camera and can post pictures to further help the process. Any help would really be appreciated!
Little help please!
- Thread starter Lupin
- Start date
octavedoctor
New member
Re: Little help please!
I've posted the technique for mapping the relative polarity of pickups several times. I wish somebody would send them to the vault so i don't have to keep searching for them, I'm tired of doing them again from scratch.
Basically, If you aren't splitting either of the coils then you don't have much of a problem; you only need to ensure that the pickups each have the same "global" polarity. You can do this with a meter, preferably a needle meter. A centre-zero meter is best but if you can't get one then an ordinary one wil do as long as it will read DC Mv.
Set it to the 500Mv DC setting. Attach the probes to the output of the neck pickup, black to ground, red to signal.
Tap the pickup with an Allen wrench and see which way the needle kicks. If it doesn't kick and you have a non-centre-zero meter then it is probably kicking a negative voltage. If this happens, reverse the probes' connections at the meter and retest so you get a positive kick.
Wire the Dimebucker as per the instructions; red to white for the wires bridging the two coils. Don't decide on the signal and ground wires yet.
Perform the tap test with the Dimebucker. If the needle kicks negatively, reverse the probes contacts with the pickup wires until you see a positive kick. Once you have this, the wire attached to the black probe will be the ground, the other will be the signal.
Lupin said:
I've posted the technique for mapping the relative polarity of pickups several times. I wish somebody would send them to the vault so i don't have to keep searching for them, I'm tired of doing them again from scratch.
Basically, If you aren't splitting either of the coils then you don't have much of a problem; you only need to ensure that the pickups each have the same "global" polarity. You can do this with a meter, preferably a needle meter. A centre-zero meter is best but if you can't get one then an ordinary one wil do as long as it will read DC Mv.
Set it to the 500Mv DC setting. Attach the probes to the output of the neck pickup, black to ground, red to signal.
Tap the pickup with an Allen wrench and see which way the needle kicks. If it doesn't kick and you have a non-centre-zero meter then it is probably kicking a negative voltage. If this happens, reverse the probes' connections at the meter and retest so you get a positive kick.
Wire the Dimebucker as per the instructions; red to white for the wires bridging the two coils. Don't decide on the signal and ground wires yet.
Perform the tap test with the Dimebucker. If the needle kicks negatively, reverse the probes contacts with the pickup wires until you see a positive kick. Once you have this, the wire attached to the black probe will be the ground, the other will be the signal.
Re: Little help please!
Thanks for the help Octavedoctor! I kinda figured it out after a few trial and errors' but not too many error's lol. Basically what I was wanting to do was figure out what style my 2 humbuckers were manufactured at so I could follow the diagram for wiring in the dimebucker to simply replace the zebra at the bridge. I'm sorry for not stating that in the first place. When I took out the zebra, there were only 2 wires, 1 white and 1 bare. Both were soldered to the same tone pot or whatever its called. One on top of the pot and one on the first side post. So i read the diagram that came with the dimebucker and went with the (Standard Humbucking Operation) (Series Wiring). Red and White wires soldered together and then taped. Green and Bare wires Soldered to ground, and then the Black wire to the hot, which was where the original white wire from the zebra was soldered to. I checked then double checked everything again. I plugged in the guitar and then tapped the pickups while switching the toggle switch back and forth between the neck pickup, mid and then to the bridge and everything worked fine. Finally I stringed up the guitar and tested everything again and it all worked out great! The highs on that pickup are lethal, especially going through a dime distortion pedal. The only problem with the pickup that I noticed is that you have to make sure you raise it up high enough or you wont get the meaty sound out of it. I seen alot of dudes complain about it and also about the Bill lawrence 500xl stating that if you dont have about a nickel's width between the strings and the pickup that you won't get that meaty sound.
Thanks for the help Octavedoctor! I kinda figured it out after a few trial and errors' but not too many error's lol. Basically what I was wanting to do was figure out what style my 2 humbuckers were manufactured at so I could follow the diagram for wiring in the dimebucker to simply replace the zebra at the bridge. I'm sorry for not stating that in the first place. When I took out the zebra, there were only 2 wires, 1 white and 1 bare. Both were soldered to the same tone pot or whatever its called. One on top of the pot and one on the first side post. So i read the diagram that came with the dimebucker and went with the (Standard Humbucking Operation) (Series Wiring). Red and White wires soldered together and then taped. Green and Bare wires Soldered to ground, and then the Black wire to the hot, which was where the original white wire from the zebra was soldered to. I checked then double checked everything again. I plugged in the guitar and then tapped the pickups while switching the toggle switch back and forth between the neck pickup, mid and then to the bridge and everything worked fine. Finally I stringed up the guitar and tested everything again and it all worked out great! The highs on that pickup are lethal, especially going through a dime distortion pedal. The only problem with the pickup that I noticed is that you have to make sure you raise it up high enough or you wont get the meaty sound out of it. I seen alot of dudes complain about it and also about the Bill lawrence 500xl stating that if you dont have about a nickel's width between the strings and the pickup that you won't get that meaty sound.
