Simple question on pickup wiring

O

Orville

New member
So I have decided to become more self reliant and learn to wire up my own guitars. I have a set of SD Skinner Bursts and a set of Alnico Pro II Tele pickups that need to go to work. I have been doing my internet reading and studying wiring diagrams for both LP and Tele basic wiring - don't want to do anything fancy here.
My question is this - on the tele wiring why is it that the ground wire from pickup goes to the input lug on the vol. pot and the hot only goes to the 3 way switch when the les paul wiring shows the hot from pickup goes to the input lug? At a minimum please let me know if that is indeed the case, but if there is a short answer as to why that would be appreciated. I have been trying to learn some basic electronics so I at least understand why I am soldering as the diagrams show. Thanks for any help!
 
Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

on a tele the hot wire goes to the switch. the ground wire goes to the pot case, not one of the three lugs on the volume pot. the volume pot case it grounded to the tone pot case and the sleeve of the output jack.

on a les paul there are independent volume controls for each pup so the hot goes to the volume then out to the switch. on a tele there is a master volume so the hot goes to the switch and the output of the switch goes to the volume control
 
Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

Make sure you know which is hot and ground on the Tele (white/yellow/etc. is hot, black is ground).

Also note that the ground on the Tele is going to the back of the pot for grounding, not to any of the lugs.

Are these Humbuckers and Tele Pickups replacing currently installed pickups? Doing a 1:1 replacement is a great way to dip your feet into soldering, you only need to desolder the pickup connections and solder the new ones where the old ones were.

Can you post the diagrams you are referring to just to double check?
 
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Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

Because master controls go between the switch and the jack, and individual pickup controls go between the pickups and the switch.
 
Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

gview



I think my confusion was the diagram using black for the wires coming from the 3 way switch. Embarrassing that I mis-understood that, it has to be hot wire coming from switch to volume pot. Like I said, I am just getting into this with a limited knowledge of electronics. I do wonder why the hot wires from the switch are illustrated in black. I have seen this on more than on diagram when doing a google search on tele wiring diagrams.
Thanks for responses !
 
Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

I can see how this could be confusing. Think of it like this...wires coming from the pickup itself are wired using the actual colors of the wires (on SD diagrams). All other wires that don't include the pickup wires themselves are usually illustrated in black.
 
Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

Orville said:
gview



I think my confusion was the diagram using black for the wires coming from the 3 way switch. Embarrassing that I mis-understood that, it has to be hot wire coming from switch to volume pot. Like I said, I am just getting into this with a limited knowledge of electronics. I do wonder why the hot wires from the switch are illustrated in black. I have seen this on more than on diagram when doing a google search on tele wiring diagrams.
Thanks for responses !
Click to expand...

The hot wire from the switch IS black.
 
Re: Simple question on pickup wiring

Just make sure your iron is nice and hot. The connections on the back of the pot are usually the trickiest and the superhot iron will make for a very hot local area for solder melting without time for the heat to spread and cook the plastic internals.
 
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