Hey. I'm trying an ambitious project, but am having issues before the complex stuff comes in. Plan is to have an onboard distortion effect pcb wired into 3 out of 4 knobs on SG style guitar. Leftover knob is volume.
Intended wiring is pickups (humbuckers, confirmed to be working) to switch, switch to volume, volume to effect PCB, PCB to jack.
Started with a basic pickup -> switch -> volume -> jack and grounding everything (including bridge). This has given me an unreasonable number of issues. Both my dad and I are Flummoxed (in his words) as to why it isn't working.
Current situation is absolute silence. No buzz, pickups not picking anything up. Something is shorted somewhere but we can't tell where. Previous attempts have given us varying results including switch working but knobs not, everything working but lots of whistling, and even everything working but so much buzz (buzzing has been a consistent issue, sometimes it goes away when touching metal, sometimes gets worse).
The components are brand new, bought earlier today, except for the switch (came with pitbull kit, couldn't find switch at local store).
I thought I had a good amount of experience wiring guitars. I’ve had much success and custom wired a lot of my guitars. On my latest FB-1 build, I wired the whole works, and one pickup worked, only at full volume. I came back the next day, poked around and everything worked.
I chalk that up to Murcury Retrograde. :-) Everything technical is out of allignment in the universe.
I went through and checked for stray wire threads after reviewing the circuit and testing pots. The kit wire and stock pots aren’t the greatest. I shielded my controls with copper sheet, trying to keep it flat and away from the positive circuit connections. Trying to examine your pictures, I could be completely wrong, but I see your green (ground) wires from the backs of the pots headed to the jack barrel, but no positive wire to the tip? I thought I saw your bridge ground wire heading to the jack, but it’s not clear if it’s on the ground or touching something important.
I would probably ‘bread board’ this outside the guitar to prove the wiring, then install it as a completed harness. Wondered also if your fuzz circuit requires power, or if it’s like the StewMac ‘black ice’ add on chip.
Looked a little closer at the photos. I see some positive wire making it’s rounds, but just hard to see the connections with the resolution of the photos. Or I simply should accept that I’m old.
There is a hot wire to the jack, but it is hard to see the white against the silver.
My effect circuit does require power, and I have that under control. I'm mounting a battery pack to the cavity cover for easy access. In its current state, the effect is not wired in.
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