Wiring.

Not ready to do the wiring yet and between coats of Tru Oil. I'm ok with the wiring but looking at the wiring diagram for my Guitar , a hollow body AES-1 and comparing it with the wiring kit supplied with my guitar kit, well i'm lost to be truthful. tried to download a couple of photos but so far unsuccessful. My kit has two humbuckers , 4 pots and a 3 way switch. whats really confusing is three wires,( red,white black), have their bare wire soldered together already
Attachment 40924Attachment 40925

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Grandpa

The wiring diagrams show 1-conductor plus screen wiring from the pickups, whilst you have pickups with 4-conductor plus screen wiring.

The wire that is twisted together with the bare screen wire is the ground wire and is the wire that gets soldered to the back of the pot as shown in the PB diagram. The single wire is the hot/signal wire and is soldered to the tab on the pot as shown on the PB diagram.

The remaining two wires soldered together are the wires connecting the two humbucker coils together. They can be used to split the pickup to give single coil operation or for the two coils to be wired in parallel, rather than standard series operation. You'd need extra switches to do that. But if you just want two humbuckers, then those two wires remain unconnected. The ends need to be insulated to prevent them grounding on a pot and affecting the sound, so put a bit of insulating tape or heat shrink sleeving over it.

The pickups normally follow the Seymour Duncan wiring colour convention, so red and white are the two wires twisted together, black is the signal wire and green and the bare shield wire are twisted together for ground. But your pickups would appear to have black and green reversed. Which is fine as long as both pickups are the same.

It's best to ask these sorts of questions in your build diary, or else in one of the specialist sub-forums, as it helps you keep track of questions and answers.

Mmmmm thanks Simon, unfortunatly I dont understand most of that, if the wires in the diagram were the same as in my kit it would be lot easier. What I need is , this wire goes there and that wire goes here description. The only thing iv'e ever wired up is a 3 point plug, and all of my soldering has been copper piping. I will get there eventually. Should have stuck to Acoustic I think

Cheers

Jim

I believe Simon is correct saying the PBG wire colours are the same as Seymour Duncan.
So try following this diagram:

Attachment 40926

Use the PBG diagram to wire the import-style 3-way switch as is it the same as the switch that came in the kit. The SD diagram shows a more traditional switch type. they both function the same, they just look very different to a beginner.

Hope that makes sense and helps.

ADD: If the wire colours are different than the SD, post a pic of what you have and we can identify what's what.

Also, ignore the "PUSH/PULL" pot labels on the SD diagram. They haven't edited their diagram properly from another schematic.

Thanks McCreed, Still very confused I'm, But i'm 76 so everyone expects that.
Attached are some pics of everything I have.

Cheers

JiAttachment 40927Attachment 40927Attachment 40928Attachment 40929Attachment 40930Attachment 40931m

another picAttachment 40933

OK, either you got two neck pickups or you posted the same pickup twice. However it doesn't really matter.

Yep, ok. I was typing while you posted the other pickup. All good!

Regardless, we now know you have 2 conductor humbuckers. So if you just follow the PBG diagram, you'll be right.
With the 2 conductor wire, the uninsulated (bare) wire is you ground/earth/negative (all the same thing) and the insulated wire is the signal/positive.

The signal/positive gets soldered to the volume pot as shown in the PBG diagram (outer lug). The bare wire gets soldered to the back of the pot also as indicated on the PBG diagram.

The two volume pots get connected to one another as shown, and the two tone pots get connected together as shown. (pre-soldered from factory)

The volume pots get connected to the switch from the middle lug to the their respective lugs on the switch.

Edit to add: Connect to the output jack connect a with a wire from middle lug on switch to positive (tip) lug on jack, and a wire from any of the ground connections to the ground lug (sleeve) of the jack.

Clear as mud, right?

If you look at the bottom of the pickups, you’ll see one has an N in a circle and one has a B in a circle embossed on the base. The one with the N is the neck position pickup, the one with the B is the bridge position pickup.

You need to fit them the correct way round as the neck pickup has less coil windings than the bridge pickup to compensate for the facy that the strings are physically vibrating more over the neck pickup position compared to the bridge position.

If you install them the other way round, the neck pickup will beca lot louder than the bridge pickup.

It might be a good idea to write ‘neck’ and ‘bridge’ on the bottom of each pickup now to make it more obvious and avoid any confusion later.

Thanks heaps , Much obliged and I think I should be ok now.

Cheers

Jim

Thanks Simon, guess what? on the bottom of the pic ups is stamped a B and a N. Didn't notice before.
Thanks for your time and advice, greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Jim

It's a moot point now since he does have separate neck & bridge pickups, but my stating "However it doesn't really matter." was based on the fact that vintage guitars did not have differently wound pickups and the compensation came from how each pickup was adjusted in relation to the strings.

It was good to point out the difference in the markings and their respective positions though!

Had Grandpa been unfortunate enough to have received two neck pickups, they still could have worked. There are still guitars made today that have identical pickups for both positions. I'm pretty sure that there is at least no difference in pole spacing on the kit pickups.

My PBG PRS1-TS build has 2 Wilkinson mini-humbuckers in it that are identical (within a a few ohms) and it works just fine and sounds great.

As these have N and B markings, there will be a difference in the number of windings.

Hello again, one thing still puzzles me, pic attached . Red /yellow/ black , ground wires soldered together, with 3 short white ( hot???) wires. what happens here.

Cheers

jimAttachment 40935

Hello again, one thing still puzzles me, pic attached . Red /yellow/ black , ground wires soldered together, with 3 short white ( hot???) wires. what happens here.

Cheers

jimAttachment 40935Attachment 40936

Attachment 40938 still a bit puzzled about this wiring, red ,white and black wires with their earth wires soldered together leaving the 3 short white wires .

what happens here.

Cheers

Jim

Hi Longprong7,
Hopefully this is all correct.
These go to the switch. The switch has 4 lugs to connect wires - 3 close together and a separate ground. The "earth" goes to the ground lug of the switch. The white wires are the input and output "hot" wires for the switch. The yellow cable's white wire is the bridge circuit "hot" and goes to one of the outside lugs, the red cable's white wire is the neck hot and goes to the other outside lug. The black cable's white wire is the output of the switch and goes to the middle lug . The other end of the black's white wire and ground must go to the jack socket.
I hope this helps.

Almost there, I thought I had already posted this ,think I put it in the wrong place. I am still a little confused about the 3 wires, red,black and yellow with their earth wires already soldered together and a the junction i'm left with 3 very short white wires. Can someone point me right with this. Pic attachedAttachment 40950

Hi Longprong7,
I answered this above.

These go to the switch. The switch has 4 lugs to connect wires - 3 close together and a separate ground. The "earth" goes to the ground lug of the switch. The white wires are the input and output "hot" wires for the switch. The yellow cable's white wire is the bridge circuit "hot" and goes to one of the outside lugs, the red cable's white wire is the neck hot and goes to the other outside lug. The black cable's white wire is the output of the switch and goes to the middle lug . The other end of the black's white wire and ground must go to the jack socket.

Sorry guys, still not quite there. This short black single wire pre soldered to the Neck volume pot. Pic attached. where does it go to.

Thanks

JimAttachment 40964

Hi,
I think that should be the bridge ground wire. The free end should be stripped and splayed a bit. It should be connected to the bridge post when they are put on to the body. Not sure about the AES-1, but there should be a small drilled hole inside the post hole so that the spayed wire can make contact with the post.

Hopefully some one else will add more.

Yes, it's probably that. I've mentioned this ground wire before. Being a hollow body, you won't be able to poke the wire through from inside the body, so you'll either have to unsolder it, and poke it through from the bridge post hole, or get another bit of wire, fit that and put push-fit connectors on the two bits of ground wire so they are easy to connect. If you do that, then shorten the wires so there's not too much excess floating around in the body.

MMmmm, I guess , its the only wire left , its very short though only 20cm long so will have to add to that anyway,

Thanks fellas

Cheers

Jim