my mustaine livewires won't work.

Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

guys; like i said in the picture i posted of my jack; i know it's wired wrong. that is just a picture of one of the combinations i've tried, i've tried everything..

but i'm gonna start all over again and follow your instructions very carefully and see if i can't get it to go this time. :)
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

guys i just made a shocking discovery that I think may be the problem;

I was starting over and i was unhooking all the red (battery) cables.. i noticed that at the base wire where the white, bare, and red wires come out from the insulation, the red wire kinda had a burn through the insulation right beside the bare wire.. (on the bridge pickup)

so they could've easily been touching, causing the battery + and - to touch, right?

so if i just tape that hole back up and make sure they're not touching anymore, it should work ?
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

guys i just made a shocking discovery that I think may be the problem;

I was starting over and i was unhooking all the red (battery) cables.. i noticed that at the base wire where the white, bare, and red wires come out from the insulation, the red wire kinda had a burn through the insulation right beside the bare wire.. (on the bridge pickup)

so they could've easily been touching, causing the battery + and - to touch, right?

so if i just tape that hole back up and make sure they're not touching anymore, it should work ?


I would trim it back so that the burned section is gone and strip a new section. Better safe than sorry. I had an error in a LiveWire install once and let the smoke out of the pickups...
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

I would trim it back so that the burned section is gone and strip a new section. Better safe than sorry. I had an error in a LiveWire install once and let the smoke out of the pickups...


LOL

yeah, it had a few extra inches of lead more then what I needed so i just cut back the entire thing and started fresh. i'm done wiring both volume pots and just gotta do the battery\ jack now.

wish me luck guys.. and thanks so much for bearing with my noob-ness. you were right it's a good learning experience.. now I can possibly shed some insight if someone makes a similar mistake.

thanks again, here it goes.
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

dudes;

it kinda works now..

It gets a solid signal, however i have my amp on a very distorted setting and it still sounds completely clean - that, and the volume c ontrols are kinda messed up..

they kinda both work ,for both pickups, if that makes sense.. ?
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

Cool, mang. Glad to see it was a simple fix and yup, that is exactly what made the battery hot.

Fresh battery? Cold solder joint or lose wire somewhere? I would try the fresh battery and go from there. Remember, the battery is being drained while the guitar is plugged in so unplug it when you are not playing through an amp.
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

Hey-

IT works but it sounds very muddy, there is little to no output (or at least there's no treble)..


And the volume controls are doing absolutely jack ****.

Battery may be dead- it was brand new yesterday and only used for 30 seconds, but that was when the battery got hot; that could've drained the whole thing i suppose? i';ll try and find a new one
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

new battery, same problem...

:(

The neck volume control works; though all it seems to do is bleed what little treble the pickups are getting.. even on 0 volume, sound still comes through. bridge volume control doesn't seem to do anything..

they are wired to the right volumes though.

i don't think it's the problem people were reporting with "bad pots" with the livewires however; since they worked 100% beautifully before
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

ok, i've given up for the day again.. so many hours, and it's just not worth it..

here's the last thing I did; i tried simply putting the bridge pickup to the bridge volume, then a wire to the jackj.

it's got about half the output it should, and the volume control is acting almost as if it were a tone knob, rather then a volume. it still sounds like ass, but it's a bit better i guess..
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

Hey 'tudes. I know this can be frustrating. You wouldn't believe how many times I make some silly mistake while working in the deep dark recesses of a guitar, and I've been doing this forever. ;)

Here's a couple things to look at:

Generally, if a volume control doesn't go to "zero", it means that you don't have a good ground on the volume pot. Check to see if you soldered to the back of the pot, but didn't connect the back of the pot to ground on the output jack. Also, overheating the back of the pot, which may cause the little plastic disc inside thats holding the wiper to warp, may cause this. The only way to test is with a meter.

Let me know what type and configuration your guitar is, (2 vol/2 tone, 1 vol/1 tone, etc.), and I'll see if I can make you a custom diagram that might help.

Walk away from it . . . and hit it on the weekend. :)
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

artie- thanks for the reality check, this is drivin me nuts.

it is 2 vol 1 tone, but i wasn't planning on using the tone.

also it's not that the volume pot doesn't zero - it doesn't even act as a volume pot.. it's just cutting treble really.. and even on 10 the pickup sounds very strange..
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

Hmmm . . . ok, let me think on this. What kind of guitar, and selector switch do you have? 3-way, 5-way, LP-ish?
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

Make sure the lead is plugged into the jack all the way. With my warlock the actives had the same sound and then I realised it wasn't plugged in fully.

I'm not trying to make you sound like an idiot. It's just sometimes it can be simple things like this
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

It sounds like what you think you have the pickup hooked up to as volume is really the tone pot. Is there a little capacitor on it? They're green or red or yellow or orange....usually.
 
Re: my mustaine livewires won't work.

It sounds like what you think you have the pickup hooked up to as volume is really the tone pot. Is there a little capacitor on it? They're green or red or yellow or orange....usually.

one of the pots has a yellow cap on it, soldered to the rightmost lug and grounded on the back of the pot it looks like; but, that's the one that I don't even have connected. I figured the tone control isn't going to help much with these actives as I couldn't even get a decent clean sound out of them with it before

Make sure the lead is plugged into the jack all the way. With my warlock the actives had the same sound and then I realised it wasn't plugged in fully.

I'm not trying to make you sound like an idiot. It's just sometimes it can be simple things like this
no offense taken, dude. I've done the same thing before :lol:
I don't think that was the problem but i'll surely double check next time to be sure.. and then if it was that i'll hang my head in shame for posting all this nonsnse!

Hmmm . . . ok, let me think on this. What kind of guitar, and selector switch do you have? 3-way, 5-way, LP-ish?

It's a LP style 3-way (bridge, both, and neck) :)

thanks guys..

I'm pretty sure the problem just has to be more wire bleed from my careless solder iron use.. see, the tip of my iron doesn't tin or get very hot.. the only place that will take solder (or "tin" i think it's called) is on the side, so i have to solder everything from an angle.. causing lots of accidents (some painful)

Later on today, i'll take a picture of what I have so far right now. I took all the wires out thta were connected to the switch ; i Just wanna get the bridge pickup and volume working for now, (i never used the neck anyway) as I have a jam with the band tonight and I really don't wanna have to use the flying V unless I have to. thanks for stickin with me guys
 
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