newbie question - do I sand down the neck joint to fit?

WOW thanks guys. I'll try and answer all the questions.

I resoldered a few joints and I now have a very slight hint of sound from the bridge PU but the G,B,E strings, nothing. and I mean you have to press your ear against the speaker.

The bridge PU is fine but OUTPUT sound level is low compared to my Les Paul as a comparison on the same Amp Volume setting.

The earth wire is basically touching the bridge posts, how good a connection it is, is tough as the wire wont solder to it so its resting against it.



There is no hole from the control cavity to the tremelo as I would have thought that would have been a better earth.

There is a strong HUM/buzz but reduced from earlier days. You couldnt turn the amp up too much as the hum would drive you insane.

When I tap the neck PU you definitely get the sound from the amp, the bridge PU is faint and when the bridge PU is selected nothing.

There is no copper shielding.

Controls are 1 x Volume and 1 x tone and 3 way selector. When using a ultimeter does the guitar need to be plugged into an amp? Im guessing yes for some sort of power supply? (sorry not electronically minded at all :)

I'm actually considering stripping the entire control cavity and re wiring the entire thing, as opposed to what my mate has done.

It seems like it is all connected correctly and last nights efforts made an improvement.

Another dumb question, the wires supplied are they of all different guage for different connections as I was looking at my Squire and it has different wires, if so, I think my mate has just used whatever wire he picked up as opposed to following the coloured wires in the diagram?

I'll check if wires are touching lugs etc etc.

Cheers for this. I'll actually re wire it and see if it is an issue. Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterh

Have you tried switching your pup wires on the 3-way? I thought I had a problem with my TL-1 so I tried wiring the neck pup to the bridge location on the 3-way switch. It at least proved that there was nothing wrong with my pups. Turned out all the noise and dead bridge pup was the result of wiring the output jack backwards.
Can you post a pic of your output jack wiring?

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Thanks for this. I'll actually try rewiring and see if it makes a difference.

Hi Stephen, the guitar doesn't need to be plugged in, you are measuring resistance of the pickups, so you should be able to test from the pickup wires through the circuit to the output jack and pretty well get the same resistance readings.
The wires supplied with the kit should be all the same gauge, and the colours doesn't matter what you use compared to the wiring diagram. You use different colours so it's easy to follow what each end connects to.

With the low output bridge pickup can you raise the level of the bridge pickup so it's closer to the strings.

Usually the output of the PBG pickups will be lower than better quality pickups so that is normal. You just have to turn up your amp a bit louder haha

sounds like a complete rewire will hopefully solve the problems.

The earth wire should have been fitted to wrap around the bridge post bush so it makes good contact. If it isn't you should try and remove the bridge post bush and wrap at least 20mm length of bare wire and knock it back in. This could be the whole problem the guitar isn't earthed properly.

I would try doing that before a re-wire. If the earth wire is resting against the bridge post there's a good chance it's moved away and there's no contact at all

Excuse poor wiring skills....hence why Im thinking of redoing my mates handywork.

Attachment 10896Attachment 10897

There is an earth wire that goes to bridge saddles and off to jack.

the two yellow wires are the PU wires.

Hey Stephen, don't worry about poor wiring skills and wiring knowledge, we all had to start learning at some stage.
A bit hard to see in detail all the connections. So if the earth wire from the bridge saddles goes to the jack is there another wire that connects the earth wire to the common earth points on the back of the pots ?

also there should be an earth wire between back of volume pot to back of tone pot so they are both earthed, hard to see, have you done this ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

Hi Stephen, the guitar doesn't need to be plugged in, you are measuring resistance of the pickups, so you should be able to test from the pickup wires through the circuit to the output jack and pretty well get the same resistance readings.
The wires supplied with the kit should be all the same gauge, and the colours doesn't matter what you use compared to the wiring diagram. You use different colours so it's easy to follow what each end connects to.

With the low output bridge pickup can you raise the level of the bridge pickup so it's closer to the strings.

Usually the output of the PBG pickups will be lower than better quality pickups so that is normal. You just have to turn up your amp a bit louder haha

sounds like a complete rewire will hopefully solve the problems.

The earth wire should have been fitted to wrap around the bridge post bush so it makes good contact. If it isn't you should try and remove the bridge post bush and wrap at least 20mm length of bare wire and knock it back in. This could be the whole problem the guitar isn't earthed properly.

I would try doing that before a re-wire. If the earth wire is resting against the bridge post there's a good chance it's moved away and there's no contact at all

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Thankyou so much. I was actually thinking it would be a very poor contact and that it should be wrapped a round a few times. I will test this first and make a good contact before a rewire :)

no worries Stephen, I have an idea I think the whole problem is the earthing of the guitar. You may not need a re-wire

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

Hey Stephen, don't worry about poor wiring skills and wiring knowledge, we all had to start learning at some stage.
A bit hard to see in detail all the connections. So if the earth wire from the bridge saddles goes to the jack is there another wire that connects the earth wire to the common earth points on the back of the pots ?

also there should be an earth wire between back of volume pot to back of tone pot so they are both earthed, hard to see, have you done this ?

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Yes there is. There is an earth wire on all pots and then off to bridge saddle (which Im guessing will be a poor connection) and then off to the jack.

Let me re-check all these points and in particular the bridge saddle wrap around.

no worries Stephen, if your mate has done all the wiring you will need to investigate !

ok checked ground wires, earth wire to bridge remarkably different. checked connections etc now when I tap the bridge PU i get the echo tap thru the amp which I didnt get before. BUt still no sound from bridge PU when solely selected.

Used ultimeter got readings from neck PU but nothing from bridge PU

:)

Okie dokie - all checked, hum reduced and now i get the faintest sound from bridge PU when selected but volume on Amp has to be turned up to 3/4.

Bridge PU is much stronger now, noise hum changes depending where Im facing amp etc :)

SorrY I meant neck PU is a lot stronger now :) Getting there.....process of elimination I guess