LuosRestil
New member
I've just undertaken my second pickup replacement project, and I think I may have gone wrong somewhere. The first was a direct Telecaster single coil replacement, which taught me how to solder and all that jazz, but didn't show me much about wiring. In this case, I've taken a MIM Fender Standard Stratocaster and attempted to replace the neck and bridge single coils with a SD Lil 59 and SD JB Jr, respectively, keeping the stock middle pickup. I also decided to remove the neck tone pot, move the volume pot to the empty space to make playing more comfortable, and rewire the other tone pot to control all three pickups. To do all this, I followed this schematic: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=HSH_1v_1t_5w . I haven't gotten as far as restringing it, but I've noticed some problems already, and I was hoping for a few words from experience.
1: To test that all the pickups were functional, I plugged the guitar into an amplifier and tapped the polepieces with a screwdriver. With the selector switch in any position, all pickups generated some sound when tapped. The pickup position selected was by far the loudest, but the others did generate some sound when tapped. Is this normal, or is something strange going on? If something strange is going on, what is the likely culprit?
2: I was under the (apparently false) assumption that reversing the green and black pickup leads, as noted in the schematic, would lead to hum canceling in the notch positions, but that hasn't turned out to be the case. Not sure what to do to correct this.
A few details that merit mentioning: I replaced all the wiring, except the wires from the back of the tone pot to ground, since some of them were too short after removing the tone pot and moving the volume pot, with 22 gauge stranded copper wire. I also had to extend the pickup leads of the neck pickup, as I bought it used and it didn't have enough wire to reach the switch and volume pot. For this, I also used the same 22 gauge stranded copper wire. Not sure if any of this makes a difference, but I figure it's better to offer too much information in diagnosing what I've botched than too little.
Thanks very much in advance for any and all help. I'm brand new to the Seymour Duncan forums, but it looks like an incredibly helpful resource.
~Brian
1: To test that all the pickups were functional, I plugged the guitar into an amplifier and tapped the polepieces with a screwdriver. With the selector switch in any position, all pickups generated some sound when tapped. The pickup position selected was by far the loudest, but the others did generate some sound when tapped. Is this normal, or is something strange going on? If something strange is going on, what is the likely culprit?
2: I was under the (apparently false) assumption that reversing the green and black pickup leads, as noted in the schematic, would lead to hum canceling in the notch positions, but that hasn't turned out to be the case. Not sure what to do to correct this.
A few details that merit mentioning: I replaced all the wiring, except the wires from the back of the tone pot to ground, since some of them were too short after removing the tone pot and moving the volume pot, with 22 gauge stranded copper wire. I also had to extend the pickup leads of the neck pickup, as I bought it used and it didn't have enough wire to reach the switch and volume pot. For this, I also used the same 22 gauge stranded copper wire. Not sure if any of this makes a difference, but I figure it's better to offer too much information in diagnosing what I've botched than too little.
Thanks very much in advance for any and all help. I'm brand new to the Seymour Duncan forums, but it looks like an incredibly helpful resource.
~Brian
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