Parallel Wiring a PAF Joe Causing Hum?

[Gunner4Life]

I have a PAF Joe neck pickup wired in both series and parallel, and in both settings there is hum, and in parallel the pickup sounds like it's being used with a cocked wah... Is this normal for this pickup? The guitar is an Ibanez RG920, I wired the pickups exactly the way the stock DiMarzio IBZ pickups were wired, which the neck pickup is essentially a Super 2, and there was no hum, and in parallel the pickup was just a little cleaner sounding. Honestly, I kinda like the sound of it in parallel, and there is no loss of tone or power in series, so it's just an issue of the hum... Grounding perhaps? The bridge EVO 2 works as it should.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Parallel Wiring a PAF Joe Causing Hum?

Cold solder joint? You need jumper leads (alligator clips wired together) so you can test ground connections easily - clip each end to a grounding point and see if it still hums.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Parallel Wiring a PAF Joe Causing Hum?

The notch filtering effect and hum suggest that the coils are in the wrong electrical phase relationship. What schematic diagram did you follow?

EDIT - Could be a conductor colour code translation issue.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Parallel Wiring a PAF Joe Causing Hum?

If the IBZ pickups are indeed made by DiMarzio, they should (if they have any sense) follow the same color scheme as their own, so it should be a simple matter of matching color for color.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Parallel Wiring a PAF Joe Causing Hum?

Agreed.

Another possibility is untidy soldering to the OTAX 24-contact, double PCB selector switch. The contacts are tightly spaced and with jumper cables between some to achieve the parallel and inside coils selections.