Suspect pickup wire colors

[matei]

Hi,

I have two p-rails. SHPR1-N (neck) and TBPR-1B (bridge trembucker)

I am trying to split the coils using push pull pots and I am getting some problems. I started suspecting that one of the pickups has the wires wrong.
I did the screwdriver test and it looks like this:
- Neck pickup: P-90 White: Positive, Black: Negative
Rail Red: Positive, Green: Negative

- Bridge pickup: P-90 Black: Positive, White: Negative
Rail Red: Positive, Green: Negative

Is the neck pickup P-90 wired correctly?
How would the correct wiring for this look like?

Regards,
Matei

 

[VinceT]

Suspect pickup wire colors

Hi,

I have two p-rails. SHPR1-N (neck) and TBPR-1B (bridge trembucker)

I am trying to split the coils using push pull pots and I am getting some problems. I started suspecting that one of the pickups has the wires wrong.
I did the screwdriver test and it looks like this:
- Neck pickup: P-90 White: Positive, Black: Negative
Rail Red: Positive, Green: Negative

- Bridge pickup: P-90 Black: Positive, White: Negative
Rail Red: Positive, Green: Negative

Is the neck pickup P-90 wired correctly?
How would the correct wiring for this look like?

Regards,
Matei

It may be, Matei. Search my name and PRails in this forum (one of my earliest posts) it describes exactly this, and the fix.

The pickup is internally out of phase.

Bottom line, when you wire it up, just use black as white and white as black. No need for any other surgery. (EDITED: I got the color pairing wrong originally)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[matei]

Re: Suspect pickup wire colors

Hi, thank you for the quick reply! Unfortunately I was not able to find your original post, only some other posts that make reference to that original post. Would you be so kind to paste a link?

Regarding my problem, wouldn't it be better to just flip the white / black pair on the neck pickup instead of the green / black?

What I measured, wired according to SD instructions:

[COLOR="#B22222"]          
Neck    p B W R G g
          - + + - 
          + - + -
Brdg    p B W R G g[/COLOR]

Note the neck P90 (Black White pair) out of phase both with the neck rail (Red Green pair) and the bridge P90. I don't think that will fix the internal phase problem.

How I think it should look like:

[COLOR="#8B4513"]          
Neck    p W B R G g
          + - + - 
          + - + -
Brdg    p B W R G g[/COLOR]

That should fix the internal out of phase problem (+ goes to - and then to + and -) string signal adds up and hopefully the wiring direction will take care of the hum
That also puts the two P90 in parallel with each other correctly.

What do you think?

P.S.
I am asking that many questions because I am slowly running out of cable on the pickups doing so many attempts

 

[VinceT]

Re: Suspect pickup wire colors

Matei - no problem with the questions.

And my original post was typed too fast!!! I’ll edit it to catch error.

If it’s the same issue, then one of the coils will be out of phase with the Bridge pickup and one will be in phase. Whichever is out of phase, connect those wires opposite to normal - Either black/white or red/green.

Sorry for any and all confusion.

My situation was slightly different, as I was using Triple Shot rings. Here’s the link to the original thread:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?273513-Pre-diagnose-p-Rails-Triple-Shots-in-ES-335




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[GuitarDoc]

Re: Suspect pickup wire colors

I am asking that many questions because I am slowly running out of cable on the pickups doing so many attempts

Why are you running out of wire?

You understand that a soldering iron can disconnect a solder joint as easily as it can connect it, right?

But even if you're too lazy to do that and you clip off each soldered wire end you only need to clip off about 1/4". Pickup leads are about 18" long. MAN!! That's a whole lot of clipping before you begin to run out of wire!!

And even if your wires are getting too short to reach your control cavity, you know you can splice more wire onto them to lengthen them.

 

[matei]

Re: Suspect pickup wire colors

Hi and thanks for the answers

Managed to put it in place, looks like it was actually the bridge pickup. Now they sound somehow... I need to finish the body and shield the cavity and so on...

@GuitarDoc I am afraid that my brand new pickups, one bought from Thomann and one from Warwick Europe came with consistently less than 18" long wire. The bridge pickup came with about half of what you mentioned and the neck was barely making it to the second tone pot for the push pulls...

I am not as lazy as you think, I am actually looking at my first guitar wiring and my first time holding a soldering iron in my hands so the soldering and unsoldering happened repeatedly as I was getting used to the activity

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Suspect pickup wire colors

If the wires are too short, just splice more wire onto them to make them as long as you need.