You obviously know me well, but unfortunately that’s not the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by king casey
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You obviously know me well, but unfortunately that’s not the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by king casey
All looks good, so I'd suspect the pickup wiring connections. Are you sure you've got the right wire colours connected? Are the two inter coli connection wires correctly joined together? DC ohms reading across the input tab and pot back of the volume pot?
And amp not on standby (happened to me, just like the volume pot situation - amp and guitar)?
Which one is the input tab, Simon? I got the wiring diagram from tone rider themselves.
I’m guessing it’s nothing to do with the Earth (Black) wires, which only leaves the red pickup wire (green and bare show continuity to the back of the pickup, red does not). Output to pot shows continuity (from memory, it’s cold outside and I’m not going back out to double check). Strange, I thought the red pickup wire and white wire to the capacitor was one of my better joins.
The one on the left in the picture with the pickup wire and the lead off to the capacitor/tone control is the input. The middle tab is the signal output.
OK, so the wiring colours should be fine, which means that either the red wire's connection to the input tab of the pot isn't making and is hidden under the heat shrink, or one of the coils is open circuit. I've soldered two bits of wire into one hole before, only to discover that only one wire was properly soldered, the other was left suspended in mid-air, not touching anything and the solder had missed it.
The bare wire of the green and bare pair is connected to the back of the pickup, which is why it's connected to ground to help act as a shield. The fact that one end of the pickup also needs to be connected to ground to make a signal path is the reason they are twisted together and connected to the back of the volume pot. On its own, the green wire just connects to one end of one of the humbucker coil and won't touch the back plate of the pickup at all.
It's hard to see in that photo, but it looks to me like you have the cap in series with the signal lead onto Lug 3 of the tone pot, and lugs 3 & 2 are bridged. (See attached diagram for lug reference)
I'd remove the cap from there and solder one leg of it to the middle lug 2 (tone pot) and the other leg to the back of the pot. Then solder the signal wire (white) to the lug 3 of the tone pot. Lug 1 won't be connected to anything.
This how the Tonerider diagram shows it and how I would do it for a 1 HB/1v/1t set up.
Attachment 37063
I’ve just double checked the wiring against my travel guitar and it is the same, the only difference being that pickup only had the two wires-bare and insulated. The diagram tone rider emailed to me a while back when they didn’t have this combination on their site. They did say my timing was good as they were just in the process of creating the diagrams, perhaps they have changed the diagram since then. Anyhow, the travel guitar does work.
Resoldering pickup wires hasn’t worked, maybe I should ditch the parts and start over fresh. Btw should there be continuity from the red wire to the back of the pickup (I don’t get any) like I get from the bare wire to the back of the pickup?
The cap is from the 2 lug of tone to 3 lug of volume along with the red pickup wire.
3 lug on tone just has some shrink wrap.
Here is a repost of the wiring diagram which may be easier to see.
Ok, thanks McCreed, I’ve got the latest diagram. Similar but different. Looks easier to me so I’ll give it a go next time..
New diagram from tone rider for future attempt.
That's the one I was referring to, and how I would do it if it was my job.
No. The red wire is your signal (hot/positive etc) and the back plate (or even the cover) of the pickup is going to be connected to ground (negative). That's why you get continuity at the green or bare wires. They are connected to the ground of the pickup.Quote:
Btw should there be continuity from the red wire to the back of the pickup (I don’t get any) like I get from the bare wire to the back of the pickup?
Here's a screenshot of the wire colour code:
Attachment 37071
It may help you visualise how HB pickup wiring works.
Note: the bare wire is not shown in the diagram.
No, the red wire doesn’t connect to the back of the pickup. If it did, it would be grounded and you’d get no output as both ends of the pickup connections, green and red, would be connected to ground. I thought I’d answered this in a previous post, but I obviously hadn’t got round to it before posting the reply.
Huh? Surely you meant to type 'pot'?Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
cheers, Mark.
No, Mark was talking about the back of the pickup as the green wire was showing continuity to it.
Ok, thanks folks. I think I’ve learnt something today, but I still can’t visualise where all those mysterious wires come from within the pickup. I take it some join from the start and end of the coil. Black and white joining the coils perhaps? Anyhow, let’s see how I go later in the week.
You've got two individual coils in a humbucker. One coil (north) has a black wire and a red wire connected at the two ends of the winding. The other coil (south) has a green wire and a white wire connected at the two ends of its winding.
The separate green, red, black and white wires form part of a 4-core multicore cable, with a braided overall screen on the outside of those 4 wires, which then has an overall insulation covering over it all. The screen is connected at the pickup end just to the brass baseplate of the pickup (which if its covered, is also connected to the cover through a blob of solder at each side of the baseplate). When you buy the pickup, there is no direct connection from the screen to either of the coils or their connections. That comes when you solder it in place to the back of the volume pot.
To make the humbucker work, the two coils need to be connected in series. So you have a ground wire (green) which is the 'start' (all names are nominal) of the south coil. The 'finish' of the south coil (white) is then connected to the 'finish' of the north coil (black), which links the two coils in series. The 'start' of the north coil becomes the signal output of the pickup, which connects to the input lug on the volume control.
The screen needs to be connected to ground in order to reduce hum being picked up from the pickup leads, and also to ground the backplate of the pickup (and the top cover if fitted) for more hum rejection.
You may be wondering why the 'finish' of the south coil is connected to the 'finish' of the north coil, rather than the 'start'. This is because to make two coils humbucking, one coil needs to RWRP (reverse wound, reverse polarity) with respect to the other. So one coil has its steel pole-pieces connected to the 'north' side of the bar magnet (which sits underneath and in-between the two coils, sandwiched between the coils and the base plate) and the other coil has its steel pole-pieces connected to the 'south' side of the bar magnet. So that makes one coil have 'reverse polarity' with respect to the other. To get them 'reverse wound' you don't have to physically wind the coil the other way (though I know some people do, but topographically its just the same), you just connect the wires up the other way around. Which is why you connect the 'finish' of one to the 'finish' of the other. If you connected the 'finish' of one to the 'start' of the other, then the coils would produce a signal of opposite polarity to each other, and you'd get a very thin sound indeed.
So for a humbucking humbucker, you need opposite magnetic polarity for the pole pieces, and the signal to flow the opposite way through one coil compared to the other. So you can connect the two coil 'starts' together, or the two coil 'ends' together'. it really is quite nominal as to how you do it (and different pickup manufacturers do wire up different ways round to other manufacturers, which can result in opposite polarity output signals if they get mixed together).
The result of opposite signal flow path and reverse magnetic coil polarity in one coil (compared to the other) results in the signal from the string producing the same polarity output in both coils, so these add together, but any electrical noise picked up by both coils (which isn't affected by the magnetic polarity at all but is by the relative opposite signal paths) is of opposite polarity in each coil, so the noise cancels out to a very great extent (the physical separation of the two coils means that the noise reaching the two coils will vary slightly in phase so it's never 100% cancellation and often there's a slight mismatch in the number of winds on each coil, so one signal will be slightly stronger than the other; so again, not 100% cancellation).
Great layman’s explanation, Simon. Thanks for taking the time to educate me on whats happening under that pickup cover. Much appreciated.
So given the above explanation, does that mean I should be able to test for continuity between the;
Green and Black/white wires.
Red and black/white wires.
Green and red wires?
My multi meter is not giving me any.
Father's day is coming up, how about a new multi-meter?Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
cheers, Mark.
It is new!Quote:
Originally Posted by king casey
Mmmmmm, Green and Black's........Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
Attachment 37093
If you are using the continuity tester setting on the multimeter, then you probably won't get a rewarding beep as that function is normally on the 200 ohms range setting (or thereabouts) and if the resistance is over 200 ohms, then you won't get a beep as the reading will be over-range.
You'll need to use the 20k resistance setting and measure the resistance of the coil. For example, the Tonerider Alnico II and IV neck humbuckers have a nominal DC resistance of 7.5kohms
So if you turn the volume and tone controls up to 10, and have one of those pickups, you should measure (normally within ±10%)
Green and Black/white wires = 3.75k ohms
Red and black/white wires = 3.75k ohms
Green and red wires = 7.5k ohms
For any other pickup, use the DC resistance value for the green to red measurement, and half that value for the other two.
Ok, I’ll check it out later.
I’ve actually desoldered everything and just testing the ends of the pickup wires.
But if you've got a green to red resistance reading, the pickup's working.
The volume pot is the other item to check when de-soldered. Using McCreed's pot diagram for reference, you should get around a 500k ohms reading between tabs 1 and 3. This will remain constant regardless of the position of the control knob. If you get nothing/open circuit, then you've got a broken track.
Assuming that's OK, then check the resistance reading between tabs 2 and 3. With the volume knob fully clockwise (at 10), you should get a dead short, as if the tabs were directly connected together. Turning the volume knob anticlockwise towards 0, the resistance reading should increase until at 0 you have the full 500k ohms (or whatever value you measured between pins 1 and 3). It should be an audio/log taper pot, so you won't get 50% resistance at halfway.
If that all checks out, then the problem can only have been down to a poor solder joint or a broken wire.
I should start all my posts with a thanks to everyone.
Electronics (including the wires) all test ok. Must be my second rate soldering skills.
Tap, tap. Success at last.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
My ex-wife’s chocolate choice, so it doesn’t really appeal to me anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I wasn’t happy with the fit of the bridge to the arched top so I built this tool from some off cuts. It’s a lot of sanding but it works really well.
Slowly, slowly getting there. Same issues as my first build as I set the neck before I realised about the significant height difference between floating and screw in bridges. Missing some notes in the open position as I may of lowered the nut a little too much and may require a shim. But it works. Leaving it with some strings on overnight and see how things are tomorrow.
Simple but gorgeous.
Thanks Drew. I’ve been sick at home with the rest of the family on this cold wet day so I naturally spent my time setting her up as best as I can. Between two credit card and two credit cards with a business card at the twelfth fret string height. Very happy with that as I’m more use to having to put up with a higher action. Sound decay is a bit different/longer, more linear? than my ES-5V p90 pickup.
Edit: oh yeah, and the 1st and 2nd string are gold coloured to my surprise in my packet of flat wounds.
I made a mistake on this take but I’ll try again another time when I have more compliant help.
https://youtu.be/pqT4iMRAJa4
Sounds like it looks like it should! :)
Looks good, sounds good.
Thanks guys. Here are the comp photos.
And some more.
Good luck with that however I was amused by 'sea cam' mode and 'foot cam'.Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
Good sound. Couldn't do a better rendition of Stardust myself.
So which is your favorite guitar?
cheers, Mark.
You think this is sea cam? My boy had to do the second take and you’d get sea sick watching it.
Wow, thanks for the compliment and for watching.
THIS is my favourite guitar! The lessons learnt from the previous guitars have paid off.