Wiring question regarding an odd pickup...

[Diego]

See, I bought this cheapo humbucker for my Epi strat, to give it a little more chunk at the bridge, but I'm kinda confused.

It has 3 wires... an exposed wire, red wire and white wire. Never seen a pickup with this layout in my short modder experience.

I followed my instincts and soldered the white one to the pickup switch, like the other pickups. Then, soldered the exposed one to the volume pot. Which leaves me with the red wire unsoldered...

Where do I put it? I found some Squier HSS strat schematics but they don't match.

Thanks in advance! :beerchug:

 

[octavedoctor]

Re: Wiring question regarding an odd pickup...

Oh, one of the coloured wires will be the summed output of both coils, the other will be the wire from the coil "bridge" - the junction between the two coils - and is used for coil splitting. The exposed wire is the earth/screen.
The only way to tell which is which is to read the output with a meter. The black probe from the meter should be placed on the screen wire and the impedance across that and the red and white wires compared. The one with the higher impedance will be the summed output, the lower one will be the coil tap.

 

[Diego]

Re: Wiring question regarding an odd pickup...

Thanks, man. Ok, let's say that the red one is the coil tap thingy wire.

Where should I solder it? While it was unsoldered (yup, only exposed and white connected) the pickup had a really low output with no basses almost - the SCs were louder! - I have my guitar laying on the bed with it's pickguard off... I wanna play it! :6:

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Wiring question regarding an odd pickup...

Two possiblities: if octave is right, bare to pot cap, red to switch, white unsoldered. But i think: bare and white to pot cap, red to switch. If you are out of phase at in-between-sounds change white and red. Hope that helps!

 

[Diego]

Re: Wiring question regarding an odd pickup...

I tried bare and white to pot cap, red to switch, it sounded really bad. Then tried bare and red to pot cap and white to switch. It sounded bad too. Maybe the pickup is damaged? The single coils sound fine, so I guess I didn't damage the volume pot while soldering...?

This thing is gonna drive me nuts! Do you have any idea to what could be the problem? I think I'm just gonna go buy a decent pickup, and not another no-name US$10 thing... it's given me too much trouble already.:eek13: