wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

C

CBGSFU

New member
Can anyone help me?? I have a guitar with a duncan Mini-Hum in the neck position and a rio grande babybucker in the bridge position. using the Jimmy Page wiring diagram from the seymour duncan website, I got the guitar wired up. the problems I'm having is the riogrande pickup color codes are different then seymour's, althought the colors are all the same (red, white, black, green, and bare wire) I even called Rio grande and they could not help me very much (I should have just bought two seymour's) Although I managed to figure out that the black and green wires go together to coil split, and the red wire is the hot and the white and bare wires are ground. But when I tried to hook it up according to the diagram, I could not get any output from the pickup. I finally could get it to work by wiring it to the first soder joint on the pot (not the coil tapping device below the pot) but now my volume pot is stuck on the 10 position all the time. plus the push pull pot on my treble tone isn't working. Some one please help me out here.
Thanks
Aaron:banghead: :doh:
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

I have installed the JP wiring several times and it isn't easy the first time. There are so many things that might be wrong with the wiring that I can't even guess from here. A picture or two of the wiring might be helpful as well as the proper codes for the bridge pickup.
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

The usual problem with that type of volume pot symptom is haveing a bad ground on the volume pot. Often, someone will ground the pot lug to the pot case, but forget to ground the pot case. Check that.

On the Rio pickup wiring, its tricky, but you can do it. You must have access to a multimeter (DMM). Once you get one, even a cheap one, do this:

Put the meter on "ohms", 20k range, and determine which wires are the coils. Once you know which pairs go together, (you'll get an ohms reading), switch the meter to DC volts, on as low a range as the meter will go. Its best if your meter leads have "clips" so that you can attach them to the coil leads without holding them.

Clip the meter leads to one pair of wires. Gently place a large screwdriver against one set of pole pieces and then yank it away. If you don't get any reading, or its very tiny, try the other coil. (Leave the meter leads where they are.) Now you know which leads go to which coil.

Now, as you place the screwdriver against the pole pieces, the voltage will read positive or negative. When you yank the screwdriver away, it will read the opposite. You want the meter to go positive as you approach the coils, and negative as you move away from the coils. Once you have that, write down this:

On the stud coil, the red meter lead is the Duncan black wire and the black meter lead is the white wire.

On the adjustable coil, the red meter lead is the red wire, and the black meter lead is the green wire.

Make sense? :)

Artie
 
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Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

Figuring out the north coil is easy and it is most often but not always the non-adjustable bobbin.

Figuring out the pairs of leads that go to each bobbin is also fairly easy.

Figuring out the start and finish leads for an individual bobbin is another matter.
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

I have installed the JP wiring several times and it isn't easy the first time. There are so many things that might be wrong with the wiring that I can't even guess from here. A picture or two of the wiring might be helpful as well as the proper codes for the bridge pickup.
__________________
thanks for the reply, and so quickly too. The problem is I'm not sure what the proper codes are, i guess I just need to check it with a multimeter. I'd like to put up a drawing of the wiring I did, but I don't know how to do that on this forum.
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

thanks Artie, I will try it out and see what I get
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

I don't know if this helps or not, but the guy from Rio Grande told me that the babybucker is a "true-splitting pickup"
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

another thing that sucks about this pickup is you know when you installed a duncan pickup, the adjustment screw goes into the pickup with a spring in between, and all you need to do is use a screw driver to adjust the height of the pickup? not with rio grande. On the rio grande, the screw does not take a bite to the pickup, but the pickup comes with two screw nuts not attached to the pickup. so when I tryed to adjust the height of the pickup the nut just spins, so the only way I can adjust the height is to take off the strings and then take off the pickguard (this guitar is set up simular to a strat or peavey with all the electrics mounted to the pickguard) and hold the nut with a pair of needle nose plyers and then adjust the height. I had to do this about three times before I got the height were I wanted it. I think it's a lot of extra work for a pickup thats costs $124.00. I should have just bought two seymours.
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

CBGSFU said:
another thing that sucks about this pickup is you know when you installed a duncan pickup, the adjustment screw goes into the pickup with a spring in between, and all you need to do is use a screw driver to adjust the height of the pickup? not with rio grande. On the rio grande, the screw does not take a bite to the pickup, but the pickup comes with two screw nuts not attached to the pickup. so when I tryed to adjust the height of the pickup the nut just spins, so the only way I can adjust the height is to take off the strings and then take off the pickguard (this guitar is set up simular to a strat or peavey with all the electrics mounted to the pickguard) and hold the nut with a pair of needle nose plyers and then adjust the height. I had to do this about three times before I got the height were I wanted it. I think it's a lot of extra work for a pickup thats costs $124.00. I should have just bought two seymours.
Click to expand...


Don't sweat it...you'll be glad when it is done. The Rios are the best I have heard.
 
Re: wiring problems with Rio Grande Pickup to jimmy page style wiring

I do really like how the pickup sounds, but all the other problems I'm having just turns me off to them so much. I guess the up side of this is I'm learning a lot more about how pickups work, and how to do alternate wirings
 
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