mmaehler IB5 Build

[wazkelly]

Same PUP's as in my EX-5 and Fred & Weirdy are spot on with their description as to which wires to use.

Yes, they are rather chunky units that don't seem to want to sit down in the PUP cavities but you should also check how far under the strings they might sit as the lower you go you also incur a drop in output, which is something these PUP's already lack. From memory I may have tossed the springs and used some 3-4mm high density foam underneath but that is all about to change shortly when my custom hand wired John Benson PUP's arrive, hopefully within the next 10 days or so.

[mmaehler]

Thanks! I did have to tweak the cavity a bit to get the Jack in. To get a good fit for the pickups I opted to drill the screw holes so that the springs could sit inside them. This worked out great. The springs stick inside the holes so they stay put when I flip the pickup over to install it. I saw in another thread that someone had depth problems due to the wires running under the pickups. I had already shielded the cavities so rather than carve out a groove for the wires I notched the bottom of the plastic pickup casing so the wires could pass through. Everything fits great now. Time to solder. Thank you so much for the wiring advice. It was going to come down to a lot of messy trial and error without it. I've included a photo of the pickup with the holes drilled to fit the springs.

[mmaehler]

Anybody good at troubleshooting electronics? I followed the wiring diagram from the website for four pots (2 Volume & 2 Tone) and the pickups are hot. I have volume control and tone control for both. However... With the neck pickup volume pot turned all the way down I still get sound from the neck pickup unless I turn the bridge volume pot all the way up. I should mention that the cavity is shielded with copper foil and I went ahead and ran all the grounding wires in the diagram even though the directions said this might not be necessary. Not sure if that's the problem... I figured ground is ground. Here's a photo of the wiring diagram I followed. Help, I'm stuck!

[WeirdBits]

Have you soldered the left hand lugs of the volumes (as per the image above) to the back of the pots? The diagram is showing the lugs bent back to the casings but is missing the solder 'dots'. Without those grounded lugs the volumes will turn down but not completely silence a pickup.

If you still can't solve it post some images of your wiring, as clear as possible, and we'll take a look.

[mmaehler]

I did bend the left hand lugs over and solder them. Unfortunately, they are quite short and in an effort to make them reach even the side of the pots I broke the lug off on the neck volume pot. I soldered it back to the board and to the back of the pot hoping I'd fixed it. Guess I need a new volume pot. Bummer. Thanks for your help. I think that about solves this mystery.

[stan]

I did bend the left hand lugs over and solder them. Unfortunately, they are quite short and in an effort to make them reach even the side of the pots I broke the lug off on the neck volume pot. I soldered it back to the board and to the back of the pot hoping I'd fixed it. Guess I need a new volume pot. Bummer. Thanks for your help. I think that about solves this mystery.

great work with the pickups

instead of soldering the leg back on you could use a piece of wire, which may make more reliable contact

[WeirdBits]

As Stan said, just use a short wire link to connect lug/stub to the back of the pot. Try that before buying a new pot.

[mmaehler]

Thanks again! That solved the problem. Sorry to be such a squeaky wheel but despite grounding everything and shielding every cavity I still seem to have a substantial hum. Not sure if it's my amateur soldering, the orientation of the pickups (both with wire facing cavity), the stereo output jack (hot to shorter of two short pins, ground to longer of two short pins, and long pin left alone), or some other problem I haven't conceived of. I should note that I have not installed the bridge or the neck yet. Which raises another question... The bridge is painted black as are the screws. What should I do to make sure it's good and grounded? I've assumed the ground wire wraps around on of the screws as there is no obvious grounding site on the bridge itself. But so far my assumptions haven't really panned out so well.

[FredA]

Hey, for the jack, did you check you got the right pins with a multimeter?
The parts are not really consistent between different kits so I wouldn't rely purely on what others have done.
When I did mine I plugged a jack lead in the socket and tested with multimeter to see which pin correspond to tip (hot) and which one to sleeve (ground).
For the bridge I'd sand the area where the wires will touch to bare metal to remove the paint. But you can actually test with a multimeter again. Screw your bridge in place on top of ground wire and test you have continuity between bridge and the ground wire in control cavity.
I usually test all my grounds before closing. Super quick test, one side of the multimeter on the bridge and with the other side touch back of each pots, ground lug of jack, etc. To make sure all ground are happily connected.

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