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hi guys, I just bought the upgrade kit but have no idea what to do with 3 capacitor like looking things (1 big orange thingie, 1 small blue thingie, 1 brown with multicolour stripes). wiring diagram only shows the wiring for a VK and .002 cap. which is which, and which is the odd one out???
The big orange thingy is the Orange Drop tone capacitor, which will replace the existing tone capacitor.
The small blue thingy is another capacitor and the stripy thingy is a resistor. These two go together to make the treble bleed circuit. One of these, which you can order separately.
https://www.pitbullguitars.com/shop/...elity-upgrade/
https://i0.wp.com/www.pitbullguitars...80%2C679&ssl=1
You have two options. One is to put the resistor and capacitor in parallel as shown in the upgrade picture. The legs of the two items have been wrapped around each other and then soldered together. The black stuff on the legs is heat-shrink insulation, which is there to prevent any signal shorts when installed. The other option is to wire them in series (the 'Kinman treble bleed arrangement'), which is supposed to give a more consistent frequency response when the volume knob is turned down. I've tried both, and couldn't hear much difference. Both preserve the highs when the volume control is turned down. The parallel method is certainly neater, especially if you haven't got any heatshrink.
The treble bleed unit is soldered across the input and output tabs of the volume pot. The third tab on it will be soldered to the casing/ground, so you know it's not that tab. You'll also have to fit the input and output wires on the tabs, so solder them at the same time.
https://www.sixstringsupplies.co.uk/...a-treble-bleed
Note that in their picture of it installed, they have yet to install the output wire from the volume pot (which I think is a bit stupid as it makes it a lot harder to do with solder already over the tab hole).
But the same site also has a good guide to wiring a Strat control plate.
https://www.sixstringsupplies.co.uk/...wiring-diagram
They use a 0.047uF tone capacitor, whereas you have a 0.022uF in the kit. 0.047uF is the standard tone cap for a Strat or Tele, but a lot of people find it too dark and muddy. I've started using 0.01uF tone caps which make the tone control far more useable (if you don't ever want a thick mud sound with the tone set on 1), so 0.022uF is a less drastic move towards that. It won't make any difference to the sound with the tone set on 10 (maybe an audibly undetectable 0.05dB drop at 5kHz or so), so if you don't use the tone controls, then it really doesn't matter at all.
The treble bleed circuit is out of circuit with the volume on 10 (the pot shorts out between the input and output terminals when set to 10), so that has no affect on the guitar's tone, and only starts to kick in when the volume is reduced.
Thanks Simon. you are a champion and a scholar!