Wiring Question

[Colma]

i asked in the other thread but i dont know how to move it ( or if i even can ) but i thought id ask here cause it seems more pickup / wiring related..

im trying to install a killswitch ( momentary, normally open, pushbutton ) on my guitar so that it connects the ground / hot wire when pressed in (pressed in it will be closed circut), and i think we came up w/ the best way to do it was to wire it across the terminals of the jack.

i dont really wana screw anything up so before i do it im just curious if connecting the ground to the hot wire on the jack will cut the sound off ?

or if someone else knows more about this than i do..thanks in advance

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring Question

Connecting the ground to the hot wire will definitely kill the output. You're shorting it out.

 

[Colma]

Re: Wiring Question

but it wouldnt be directly running to the ground it would still be on contact with the output jack..right ?

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring Question

Hmmm . . . not sure what you mean here. If you take one wire from the ground side of the jack to one side of a switch, and then take another wire from the hot side of the output jack and run it to the other side of the switch, when you close the switch, you kill the output.

A switch is just a mechanism to connect two wires together.

 

[Colma]

Re: Wiring Question

yea i realize it would be connecting the two wires together...however what im saying is that they will still be soldered on the same terminal, and therefor there would be no physical break in the circut that would send the hot to the ground, just a...crap i dont know the word, just a split, in the circut...so that while yes, the hot wire is touching the ground, it is STILL touching the terminal on the output jack, and electricity still runs there, right ? so wouldnt there still be output...or does by touching the ground TO the hot wire ( anywhere, even on the terminal jack ) cut the signal ?

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring Question

Ok, what you're doing is this:

When the switch is "open", its just some wire hanging out there. No signal flow at all.

 

[Colma]

Re: Wiring Question

i follow you but what i dont understand is HOW this would kill the signal as it wouldnt be re-routing the flow of the electricity because it would still be touching the terminal..even though its touching the ground @ the same time. is there something else i missed in one of your posts because ive gone over them but i am pretty tired today...i do apologize for the...misunderstanding

 

[Kommerzbassist]

Re: Wiring Question

REALLY SIMPLIFIED you can say electric current always takes the easiest way through... Ground is (should be) always the easiest way, so the current doesnt look at the way over the output jack through the amp 'n' stuff...

 

[Colma]

Re: Wiring Question

OH..got it..i thought it would flow through both..thanks a lot

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring Question

Look at this diagram:

I've replaced the ground sysmbols with an actual connection. (Done in blue.) If you look closely, you can see that when the volume is turned all the way down, on a guitar, you have done the exact same thing as the kill switch - you've shorted out the output jack. The electricity simply flows around that "short", rather than flowing out the guitar cable.

Important safety note: Its vital to understand that we can use this "shorting of the output" to kill the signal only in a low voltage application like a guitar pickup output. Most devices would explode in a shower of sparks if you tried to turn them off using this method.

We want to "mute" the input of the amp when we kill the guitars output, so that it doesn't buzz and hum. But you wouldn't want to turn off a table lamp this way.

 

[Colma]

Re: Wiring Question

sweeeeet thanks much for helping me understand the concept!! !!!! im curious if it is okay to do this same wiring across the terminals if it is a 2 humbucker guitar ? or would that be too much voltage and i should just wire it for 1 pickup or the other ?

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring Question

As long as the guitar has passive pickups in it, you're good to go. They just don't generate enough current to be a problem. Active pickups might be a different story. I wouldn't use this technique with them.

When you lower the volume control, you short out the output jack while simultaneously placing resistance between the pickup and the "short". There's a different way to do a "kill" switch with actives, but it would take a drawing to show.

Artie

 

[Colma]

Re: Wiring Question

ah , yea they are passive pickups ! ( not really a fan of the actives.. ) thanks much for all the help when i get it all set up ( soon as i find myself with more than 5 minutes here and there ) ill take a picture of the finished product :-D