Question about my wiring and pots

[matt99camero]

I'm loving the sounds I'm getting from my 59n/C-5b in my GAX70 but I'm just wanting to make sure I wired it right, the white and red are soldered together and insulated, green and bare grounded to the back of the pot and the black is soldered to one of the poles on the pot. I'm guessing since it's working I must have done it right?

Also would upgrading the stock pots and wire help out any? I looked in my Stew-Mac book and pots are pretty cheap but I didn't see where they sell just wire? I'd like to put some push pull pots in sometime but I need more wiring experience before I dive into that.

 

[Mephis]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Just asking, why would you worry about having it wired incorrectly if everything worked fine and you loved the sound of it? Thats like not feeling a headache but taking a test to see if you have one lol.

 

[matt99camero]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Well I just get scared that I'm not going to ground something right or switch up some wires and fry something. It does sound good but I want to be wired correctly too.

 

[El Dorado]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Dude, have a little more confidence in yourself. Before I started wiring I had never soldered a day in my life, but once I started I couldn't believe how easy it was. Wiring the push/pull pots is not hard. You just hook the wires to the little terminals and make sure they are on there well before you put a little solder on. The diagrams on the duncan site are very good and easy to follow. My first wiring job, ater I'd practiced soldering on some old junk parts, included 2 split/series/parallel switches. As far as buying wire, I bought some off of ebay fom this guy and it's worked great http://stores.ebay.com/GUITAR-PARTS-RESOURCE-LLC_W0QQsspagenameZl2QQtZkm . Buy some desoldering braid also, that way the worst thing that can happen is you'll just have to remove the solder and do it over again.

 

[matt99camero]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Well I am pretty confident in my soldering itself it's reading the schmatic that gets me confused and putting the wires in the right places. I've got all the tools to it like the braid and stuff.

 

[rspst14]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Don't buy pots from StewMac, I had several of them go bad. Get CTS pots from Lew or John.

Ryan

 

[Chi3f]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

your best bet is to use flux and go slow. You won't fry anything if you wire your guitar up wrong however you can damage pots and switches if you overheat the terminals with the soldering iron.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Don't buy pots from StewMac, I had several of them go bad. Get CTS pots from Lew or John.

Ryan

Thanks! I'm not crazy about the pots I've purchased from Stew Mac. Many are from Mexico and just not the same high quality as the CTS pots. I just fire sold a bunch of Stew Mac pots I purchased when I was a in a pinch for pots on Ebay just to get rid of them. Lew

 

[FretFire]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Lew, what's a ballpark price on a 500k Volume and 500k Tone pot? The pots on my RG are still stock and are VERY noisy, even after the contact cleaner treatment. After I take a swing at a pickup install next week, I'll be looking to swap those out.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Lew, what's a ballpark price on a 500k Volume and 500k Tone pot? The pots on my RG are still stock and are VERY noisy, even after the contact cleaner treatment. After I take a swing at a pickup install next week, I'll be looking to swap those out.

$5 each for the nice CTS pots. Those are all I use anymore.

You might want to upgrade to a Sprague .02 Orange Drop tone cap at the same time. And experiment with the 50's mod too! Are you familiar with that? If not just do a quick search on the forums for the 50's Mod. Lots of threads will turn up. Lew

 

[FretFire]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

It basically lets you keep your treble when you roll off the volume right? A high pass filter basically? I'm assuming you're part of the Black Rose Customs site, please correct me if I'm wrong. I just ordered a reverse zebra C5 from there yesterday, and it looks like a few pots and caps might be on the agenda as well .

 

[FretFire]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Pardon me, gotta snag 500 real quick

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

It basically lets you keep your treble when you roll off the volume right? A high pass filter basically? I'm assuming you're part of the Black Rose Customs site, please correct me if I'm wrong. I just ordered a reverse zebra C5 from there yesterday, and it looks like a few pots and caps might be on the agenda as well .

No John owns Blackrose. I own Lew's Guitars. We're friendly competitors though, and I'm always happy to send people John's way.

The 50's mod is not a high pass filer like a bleeder cap across the volume control.

It's simpler and I like the tone better: all you do is connect the tone cap or tone control to the middle teminal of the volume pot in a Les Paul type guitar...or to the output jack in a guitar with a single tone control and more than one volume control like a Hamer for example.

Works great to retain highs when you turn the volume down.

Lew

 

[FretFire]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

No John owns Blackrose. I own Lew's Guitars. We're friendly competitors and I'm always happy to send people John's way tho.

The 50's mod is not a high pass filer like a bleeder cap across the volume control.

It's simpler and I like the tone better: all you do is connect the tone cap or tone control to the middle teminal of the volume pot in a Les Paul type guitar...or to the output jack in a guitar with a single tone control and more than one volume control like a Hamer for example.

Works great to retain highs when you turn the volume down.

Lew

My apologies about the two companies :smack: . That mod sounds very cool, I'll run a search and read up on it. Thanks Lew, you're a class act :notworthy

 

[FretFire]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Just thought of another quick question, regarding the type of wire to use for guitar applications. Of course the pickups already have wires (I'm not THAT slow), but what about say running a wire from the tone pot to the output jack, is there a type/guage of wire that's optimal for these applications? I have several kinds of wire around the house, but I don't want to go dropping 16 guage speaker wire in there I don't think .

 

[rspst14]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

I use the wire they sell here: www.smallbearelec.com

Very easy to work with, comes in a bunch of colors, and is very reasonably priced. But any decent wire will work just fine. The stuff they sell at Radio Shack is fine, but I prefer the stuff I mentioned above.

Ryan

 

[FretFire]

Re: Question about my wiring and pots

Cool, just making sure there wasn't a recommended/best size or anything. Thanks.