My First Pickup Installation, the good, the bad, and the solder burn.

[Top Jimmy]

Well, it took 8 hour hours over two days but I finally got it hooked up (no thanks to Dimarzio's website, more on that later.)

I was basically looking at two pickups, but since the EVH Custom jobby was $130 I didn't want to drop too much in my first attempt, so...I though I could use some more low end so I went with the Tone Zone for a little under $60. I was replacing a s-s-h guitar with coil tapping and spliting which I didn't want, so the original wiring was out the window as reference.

Couple of things:
-Dimarzio support is horrible. No forums I could locate and all their Tone Zone instructions were all h-s-h, or h-x-h, etc diagrams.
-It's harder to locate proper string to pickup height information then you would think.
-I figured a 1 volume, 1 tone, s-s-h instructions would be easy to find, wrong.
-Alot of places tell you how but not why. Why will help you figure out the logic to what your are doing so you can apply it to other applications in the future. You know, the whole teach a man how to fish thing...
-What direction would my pickup face? They have the polls with the slots on one row.
-What do those polls with the slots do anyway and what adjustments can you make?


Basically I think this would have taken me a couple of hours but whenever i got it hooked up I got horrible buzzing. 5 hours later I gut the sucker and see that the input jack ground as been pulled away, no idea how long it was like that. Fix that.

Then, after I've done that and get the bridge working alone, the volume control is acting only as a tone control. Well apparently you need to ground the other end of the circuit on the pot to make it a volume control.

Then, as I was reaching for a beer the soldering iron got my wrist. Rule #1: though shall not drink when soldering or atleast be more careful.

Hooked up the the two single coils and I'm good to go.

I would recommend everyone to try this atleast once. Learned alot and now I'll never have to rely on a shop.

Next up somepoint in time: EVH Custom Shop :banana:

 

[Jazz Rock]

Re: My First Pickup Installation, the good, the bad, and the solder burn.

First, welcome to the forum.

Then, as I am about to finsih my diploma soon (at last) I will have more spare time (loads of) and will therefore get into guitar wirings and pickups swaping and the like.

What I've done so far is gathering knowledge from wherever I could. This forum is a very good place to start. Then, as I wasn't much of DIY person I got mysel a few books to learn more about guitar and wiring. I am just reading "Guitar electronics for musician" by Donald Brosnac. And now I start to understand the principles, which is always a good start before throwing yourself into the action.

So having said that, I hope I'll be more lucky than you in my first attempt.

So how does it sound now?

Edit: To reply to your height adjustment questions, it basically depend on your hear. If you are happy with the sound that come out than there is no reason to change the height of the pick up. If the output is weak, than you need to raise it. For the pole pieces, it is fine tuning. If you ear that one string is louder or quieter than the others, you could with a screw driver lower or raise the corresponding pole piece.

 

[Aceman]

Re: My First Pickup Installation, the good, the bad, and the solder burn.

Welcome! First rule is come here first - then do the pup swap thing. we're all pretty DiMarzio friendly here.

second rule: Iron on right, beer on left. don't cross the streams (< thinly veiled Ghostbusters reference)

 

[Top Jimmy]

Re: My First Pickup Installation, the good, the bad, and the solder burn.

First, welcome to the forum.

Then, as I am about to finsih my diploma soon (at last) I will have more spare time (loads of) and will therefore get into guitar wirings and pickups swaping and the like.

What I've done so far is gathering knowledge from wherever I could. This forum is a very good place to start. Then, as I wasn't much of DIY person I got mysel a few books to learn more about guitar and wiring. I am just reading "Guitar electronics for musician" by Donald Brosnac. And now I start to understand the principles, which is always a good start before throwing yourself into the action.

So having said that, I hope I'll be more lucky than you in my first attempt.

So how does it sound now?

Edit: To reply to your height adjustment questions, it basically depend on your hear. If you are happy with the sound that come out than there is no reason to change the height of the pick up. If the output is weak, than you need to raise it. For the pole pieces, it is fine tuning. If you ear that one string is louder or quieter than the others, you could with a screw driver lower or raise the corresponding pole piece.

Oops, posted in wrong forum, ahh well.

Ahhh, I can raise and lower the pole pieces. That actually might help.

Sounds much, much better considering I had crappy stock pickups in there. T

It would have been much easier if I could have found the correct schematic for what I wanted, it was alot of trial and error to begin with. I was just trying to go 3 way selector switch, vol, tone, s-s-h, but everyone wants to be so darn complicated.:smack:

Now I probably need to swap the singles at some point, but that's for another day.

 

[greco]

Re: My First Pickup Installation, the good, the bad, and the solder burn.

Welcome to the forum.

Hope that no beer was "injured" in the making of this epic.