"New" SD Pegasus showing no signs of life when hooked up, otherwise normal resistance

headwalk

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"New" SD Pegasus showing no signs of life when hooked up, otherwise normal resistance

Firstly Hi - I've been using this board as a resource for years but never had the need to ask a question.

I've treated my '91 RG550 to something of a rebirth. Fully copper shielded it, swapped out the V1/V2s for a Peg/Sent and a quarter pound in the middle position and put a push-pull tone in. The Sentient came boxed and unopened and when fitted works as it should, I repeated the exact same process for the Pegasus (which was clearly pulled out of another guitar) and I get nothing not even a ground hum or any response when tapped by metal (I tried swapping switch positions, so it's not that). I take a multimeter to the live and ground of the Pegasus when fitted I'm getting a fat 0. After pulling it out I get the proper resistance from green-black (12ish k) and green to red/white (6ish k), which I suppose leaves a problem with the ground. I also tested to make sure there's magentisation on each of the pins (there is).

This is where my knowledge is a bit in the dark, should I be getting any sort of signal from the multimeter when touching the ground (bare) wire and another wire, because I get nothing from red and white and barely anything from live (.02 or something). It's the same when I tie the bare ground and green cables together, it kills any signal dead which to me would imply a short, but I have no clue what further that would mean.

Like I said, I've repeated all these tests with the Sentient and it comes through fine. Have I got an Ebay dispute on my hands and If so what can I test to make sure I'm bulletproof incase the bloke tries to pull anything? Hopefully I'm just being an idiot.

Cheers
HW
 
Solder the pickup to an output jack directly, and see if it makes some signal. If it does, it's in the electronics in the guitar.
 
So on further testing I've made a mistake in testing the bare wire on the multimeter, it actually is: bare to black 0, bare to green 12k, bare to red/white 6k. I've inspected the back of the PUP and it looks like it's also been tampered with, possibly repaired.

All the readings seem like they'd be correct if the green and black wires were swapped. On a hunch I decided to hook it up this way (black twisted with bare and grounded to the volume pot, green going to live) and lo and behold it's now functioning seemingly as it should (granted i've only done the metal tap test into an amp and multimeter resistance).

Can someone else explain this situation, or is it likely he's repaired it himself and hooked it up with the wires and tried to pass it off as new?
 
Welcome to the forum

What's the sticker on the back say? Are there any additional markings on the baseplate? It could have been ordered custom with reverse wiring if they were mating it with non-Duncan pickups. You can also tell if it's been tampered with a little bit if the tape is not tight and the wax potting is disturbed. Without pics, no one here will be able to answer very well.
 
I should add that when it arrived the green/bare were twisted and soldered together, while the black seemed like it had been snipped or never used (there were no visible wire strands).

If I took a normal 5 wire SD and wired it into my guitar backwards (bare and black twisted together and grounded to the pot, green to live) what should happen, would it work seeming as normal like this pickup is?

as far as I can see the potential is either:

A: it's a duff pickup
B: it's wired backwards, either in the factory on purpose or by mistake - it apparently can happen (https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...-wiring-sigh?320645-Inconsistent-Wiring-Sigh=), or as part of a dodgy repair job
C: something else i'm missing entirely
 

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i've also noticed that the screw holes aren't the 2.4mm holes that Pegasus usually come with, but 3mm holes (albeit slightly too small for a standard 3mm screw).

Too much odd stuff going on with this one so it's going back.
 
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