Wiring a humbucker into a SSS Strat

[LeftyDan1990]

Hey guys

First post here... kinda. Was locked out of my other account as I forgot my password (ugh). I'm currently trying to wire in an SG400 bridge humbucker into my Squier strat (I'm aware this is for Pitbull guitars but I'm hoping you guys can help).

Currently I have somehow managed to wire it in in such a way that the ground is not working? I don't get any sound from strings and it seems as if I get a lot of hum unless I touch the pickups or hardware... which research tells me is a ground issue.

Anyway, I've attached photos... I'm hoping I've wired it in correctly (Pickup is around the wrong way in the pictures, but will be fixed). Can anyone point me in the right direction with correct wiring?

[Andy40]

Its hard to see from that photo.

Try looking at the One Humbucker, 2 Single Coils, 1 Volume, 1 Tone, 3 way Switch wiring diagram here.

https://www.pitbullguitars.com/wiring-diagrams/

[wokkaboy]

Hi Dan, have you got a ground wire going from the tremelo claw to a common earth point ? (looks like back of volume pot is your common earth point). If you have this and the humbucker is earthed correctly it should be fine. Some of those solder joins for the earth wires may need to be cleaned up and re-soldered. Don't bother looking at the PBG wiring links I don't think there is a diagram for what Andy suggested plus its a 5 way switch. Should have been a case of swapping out the bridge single pup and connecting wires for the humbucker to the same locations.

[WeirdBits]

Is the tape covering a join from the original wiring for the bridge pup to the replacement SG400 humbucker lead? Is it a cut & join that's been soldered and then insulated?

[LeftyDan1990]

Hi Dan, have you got a ground wire going from the tremelo claw to a common earth point ? (looks like back of volume pot is your common earth point). If you have this and the humbucker is earthed correctly it should be fine. Some of those solder joins for the earth wires may need to be cleaned up and re-soldered.

What I did was solder the humbucker ground to the same spot the others seemed to be soldered to. I'm aware my soldering is shite, I'm still very new to it and my iron is a bunnings job that is far to clunky for the job. I have a new one on the way that's a bit more like a pencil so it should be a LOT easier.

Is the tape covering a join from the original wiring for the bridge pup to the replacement SG400 humbucker lead? Is it a cut & join that's been soldered and then insulated?

That is actually my "test" wiring and no, it isn't soldered or insulated so that may be my main issue. I'm going to rip those original wires out and put the ones off the humbucker where they are meant to go.

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I've ordered a set of Tonerider Surfaris to put in place of the two stock squiers (apparently these surfaris are the same you find in classic vibe strats, of which I find to be really nice to play but... a bit pricey for me at the moment)... What I'm hoping to do is wire all these in at the same time. I don't want to pull any wiring out at this stage in case I forget what goes where.

This particular project was probably a bit complex to be my second pickup replacement attempt :P

EDIT: I also have a question. I was considering doing a bit of shielding with foil or copper tape around the inside of the body as well as the back of the pick guard. Do you think it would be a necessity or could I possibly get away with it? The Affinity strats don't actually come with any shielding on the pickguard at all and a lot of people do that as an aftermarket mod to them.

[Simon Barden]

Are the only wires you've removed and re-soldered the ones for the bridge pickup?

The wiring colours (though they don't matter as long as everything is connected correctly) are a bit confused. It's easier if black wires are kept for grounds and other colours (white here) for the signal paths as it makes it easier to follow. Here they're all mixed up. On the volume pot, the wires leading off to the output jack have white as ground and black as the signal cable. Just check that on the output jack the black wire goes to the tip connection and the white wire to the sleeve connection. If not, that's your main problem and they need to be swapped over at one end.

There is also no dedicated ground connection from the back of the first tone pot to the back of the volume pot. There looks to be a ground link between the two tone pots. Whilst this can work, because the foil shielding on the pickguard normally provides a decent connection between pots, if any of the nuts holding the pots on become loose, then that connection is lost, so I'd always run a ground wire between all the pots.

[Simon Barden]

Also, some of those solder connections on the back of the pots do look a bit 'blobby'. It might be best to get the iron out, remove the ground wires on the back of the volume pot and re-do them. If you can get someone to help you hold the wires on the back of the pots whilst doing it, then it's a lot easier to get a good result. I see you've got a solder sucker, so suck the old solder off and then rub the back of the pot with some 400 grit sandpaper until you can see nice shiny metal. I'd then tin the back of the pot first with some solder, before re-attaching the ground wires.

There's a fine line between heating the pot up sufficiently so that the solder melts well and forms a good bond, and overheating it so that the resistance track inside the pot is damaged. But the solder shouldn't form a 'blob', the back of the pot should be hot enough so that the solder starts spreading out into a pool and not all bunching up on one small point of contact. That's the time to remove the iron.

If you've got a multimeter, it's well worth checking out that you've got a good ground path from the output jack casing to the back of all the pots. Also that the switch is actually connecting the inputs to its output. The three pickup signal wires are the ones on the three left-most contacts, with the output being on the centre contact next to them (the two centre contacts are linked so that the other half of the switch can feed a signal to the tone pots). It may just be a coincidence that a switch contact has failed at the same time you did this!

[LeftyDan1990]

Thanks Simon, some good info there.

I ha(ve)d a multimeter but the bloody thing doesn't want to work for me :-/

As soon as my new soldering iron comes in I'll get cracking on it. Thanks again Simon!

[LeftyDan1990]

Managed to wire it in properly (turns out I had the ground and hot wires for the input jack soldered wrong, hence the buzzing... DOH!) and get it working, along with replacing the original Affinity pups for some really nice Tonerider Surfaris (same as the Classic Vibe strats). I decided to put the neck pickup from my SG in the bridge of the strat instead of the bridge humbucker just... because I thought it would be cool. It works just fine, gives me that humbucker chunk I want. Only real fault I have is that the tone knob doesn't actually do anything to the humbucker tone-wise, but I can blend the mid single coil and the humbucker in together using the tone knob for a bit of fun. Happy little accident

I also (not shown in below pic) had a crack at a 'relic' job (I figured why not, seeing as I'd melted away the hole for the pickup instead of getting a HSS pickguard... so why not add more grunge and gross to the look of the guitar). It's not going to look pro, but I don't honestly mind. I just want a guitar that is uniquely my own

The guitar itself plays great, the Squier Affinity necks are really quite nice and smooth, even if they lack colour and character. I find lead playing is really fun and easy. The new pups make it sound much nicer, although I reckon (like anything really) I'll need to play around a bit before I can nail the tones I want out of the instrument.

Mucking around with this makes me want to pick up a kit from PBG and have a crack at building one myself

[Simon Barden]

Glad you got it working. Using the neck pickup is a good idea as it will have a slightly lower output than the bridge pickup and so will match better in levels with the single coils.

I'd be tempted to try fitting a pickup ring around the humbucker. A thin flat one would do it and it would make it a bit more individual whilst still hiding the rough edges of the hole. But looking at your picture, I'm not sure that there's enough space between the lower edge and the volume control knob to fit one.

If it was me. I'd get annoyed with the hole after a while and have to get a new scratchplate.