School me on checking pickups with multi meter

[DEADBYDAWN]

Hi,
I have a Jackson DK2M with a Duncan Jazz in the neck and a Distortion that I recently installed in the bridge position. It has a 3 way switch and 1 volume and 1 tone pot.

I was hoping I could check to see if the Duncan distortion was in the right range with a multi meter by using the 1/4 input on my guitar. Could you tell me how to go about it?

The specs say this pickup has 16.6k dc resistence- what would be a normal reading at the 1/4" input jack?

I want to make sure I don't have any cold solder joints because I am not very good at soldering yet.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: School me on checking pickups with multi meter

Just touching the multimeter to the hot and ground leads should tell you the DC resistance of the pickup. Iam not sure how to calculate the resistance after it goes through the pots, switch and jack. It will change but just how much that iam unsure of. But I ask though. Do you have a problem with the pickup? Most of the time when I see people make cold solder joints they are dead or so weak that its very noticeable.

 

[DEADBYDAWN]

Re: School me on checking pickups with multi meter

The pickup sounds good but the low E sounds thin to me. I believe I actually figured out the problem- a dead low E string. I switched to a different brand of strings a while ago and had found out they need to be crimped to prevent the strings from going dead. This warning is printed inside the box (not really a place I look for warnings/direction).
A few members of another forum verified the problem as well. It has something to do with the hand winding of the strings.



I am switching to d'addario now.

 

[Artie]

Re: School me on checking pickups with multi meter

The pickup will be in parallel to the resistance of the pot, so with a 500k pot, the DCR should be around 16.066k. With a 250k pot the DCR should be around 15.6k.