Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

F

fretburner

Well-known member
So I installed an old JB (early 90s) into a Yamaha Pacifica Tele... I followed the "normal", SERIES wiring of Duncan pickups, which is :

Black = Hot
Red + White soldered together
Green + Bare = Ground

However, the pickup sounded thin and weak, even if both coils are "active", i.e. when I tap the screws vs slugs, they're about as loud.

So I figured the color coding of the wire must be wrong, and so I tried to wire it as if it was wired in PARALLEL, which is :

Black + Red = Hot
White + Green + Bare = Ground

Now, it seems like I've only "activated" the slugs, as if I was doing a COIL TAP instead! When I tap the slugs, the sound it makes is much louder than the screws.

How can I wire my old JB the "normal" way, which is in SERIES?

It's an HH Tele with a 3way blade switch.

Thanks a bunch, and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

Here's a photo of the tele... I had it refinished to a green burst:
68f55e6603bf0ac3af1fd754805fb550.jpg


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Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

Your guess is as good as ours.

If the regular method is not working then you will have to measure the coils to see what is happening and which colours are starts and ends of coils. Typically black/white is the slug coil, Red /Green is the screw.
As an addition.....try putting another magnet in there with the regular stock colour coding.
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

AlexR said:
Your guess is as good as ours.

If the regular method is not working then you will have to measure the coils to see what is happening and which colours are starts and ends of coils. Typically black/white is the slug coil, Red /Green is the screw.
As an addition.....try putting another magnet in there with the regular stock colour coding.
Click to expand...
How do I measure the starts and finishes?

I did some analysis based on how it should be (Duncan wiring) versus how it is behaving right now, and it seems to be that the red and white wires were interchanged.

If I guessed correctly, then I'm basically out of phase right? So I can just use green as hot and black to ground?

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Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

Out of phase will only sound thin and weak when you have BOTH pickups on at the same time, otherwise it will sound normal... so that’s not it.

What kind of difference did it make to the SOUND when you switched from the normal series wiring to the parallel... did it get weaker still?
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

I was confused..I think you mean split, not tap...I was wondering if there was a special tap on there. I am also wondering about the wires, as it sounds like it is out of phase with itself, and the wire colors aren't quite right. Maybe the 4 conductor wire was changed, or not wired correctly I think the first step is to figure out what wire is going where.
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

BriGuy1968 said:
Out of phase will only sound thin and weak when you have BOTH pickups on at the same time, otherwise it will sound normal... so that’s not it.

What kind of difference did it make to the SOUND when you switched from the normal series wiring to the parallel... did it get weaker still?
Click to expand...
It sounded louder and fuller, but I noticed the screw coils were not on... hence, I thought I was splitting the coils when I used the parallel wiring, i.e. black+red to hot

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Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

Mincer said:
I was confused..I think you mean split, not tap...I was wondering if there was a special tap on there. I am also wondering about the wires, as it sounds like it is out of phase with itself, and the wire colors aren't quite right. Maybe the 4 conductor wire was changed, or not wired correctly I think the first step is to figure out what wire is going where.
Click to expand...
Yes, I meant split. Only the slugs were making a sound when I did the black+red to hot.

Using the "normal" wiring where black is hot, and red+white soldered and taped off, it sounded even thinner.

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Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

Well something isn’t adding up here. I have a JB (albeit much newer) on one of my guitars and I also have a series/split/parallel switch for it. In series the pickup is very noticeably fuller and louder than split (to either coil) or parallel. Parallel and split are not noticeably different from one another in terms of volume, but split has a little more “string character“ than parallel has. Certainly neither of them are louder than series.

The fact that you are having a thinner sound when you have both coils running (whether it’s in series or in parallel) in comparison to when you have only one coil running mystifies me. I think Mincer may be right, there’s something awry with the wiring of that pickup. Maybe the two coils are out of phase with one another, or maybe someone at some point attempted to do some “surgery“ to it and botched it up. I’m not sure, but it’s not acting like it should.… at least not according to the way you’re describing it.
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

You can actually run a single pickup OOP if the wires are not correctly connected together.

With a multimeter you should be able (by disconnecting the series connection) to find out the wires which are reading a K reading....in this case about 8k for 1 coil. If you have all wires separate then you will only read a resistance figure with the two ends of the same coil.

Going to one of your queries.....if red and white were interchanged (with each other) then series wiring would stay the same. You would only have issue if you were trying things like parallel or split.
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

BriGuy1968 said:
Someone at some point attempted to do some “surgery“ to it and botched it up.
Click to expand...

I think it's best for you to go in and fix it so you don't have to deal with the colors being wrong in the future. Black and white go to the slug coil and green and red go to the screw coil. Black and green are both starts and white and red are both finishes. You can tell which is a start because that lead is buried under the coil while the finish lead comes out from on top of the coil... that you could unwrap if you were so inclined.

Color codes.gif
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

AlexR said:
You can actually run a single pickup OOP if the wires are not correctly connected together.

With a multimeter you should be able (by disconnecting the series connection) to find out the wires which are reading a K reading....in this case about 8k for 1 coil. If you have all wires separate then you will only read a resistance figure with the two ends of the same coil.

Going to one of your queries.....if red and white were interchanged (with each other) then series wiring would stay the same. You would only have issue if you were trying things like parallel or split.
Click to expand...
All wires separated out, tapping the Black and White leads with my multimeter measures 8.42k

I don't get any reading on any other combination of the wires

I twisted together red+white wires and put the other multimeter lead to the wire and I got 8.60k

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Last edited:
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

I think the screw coil is dead.

I pulled my other JB and with the red+white twisted together, black+green measured 16.6k

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Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

You may check where the coil wire meets the 4 conductor cable- that is the most likely place that the break in the wire might be. Get out a magnifying glass, though, as that stuff is tiny!
 
Re: Wiring Help! Series, Parallel, Coil Tap?

Mincer said:
You may check where the coil wire meets the 4 conductor cable- that is the most likely place that the break in the wire might be. Get out a magnifying glass, though, as that stuff is tiny!
Click to expand...
I plan on doing that at some point. Should be a good practice pickup for me.

I'm just bummed coz it's an early 90s pickup.

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