I am after a bit of advise on wiring pickups, I have managed to buy a pair of genuine Hofner pickups but they have 3 wires not 2 as was supplied with the kit.
I assume they can be used in this kit but have no idea on how to wire them. I hopefully have attached some photos for reference. The second photo has the kit supplied pickup for reference.
OK, looks like the bridge is a humbucker and the neck a single coil.
Humbucker Bridge. The green/bare wire will go to ground, black is the signal hot connection and the red and white wires are the wires connecting the two humbucker coils together in the middle. To keep the pickup as a humbucker, they can remain unused and unconnected, in which case the soldered end of the wire needs some insulation tape or heat shrink over the ends to stop them shorting out. If you want to add in a coil split switch for single coil operation, then the red/white wires go to one side of the switch with the other side connected to ground.
Single coil neck. Referring to the bridge pickup wiring I'd be pretty confident that the green is the normal signal ground, black is the normal signal hot connection and the braided wire is the cable screen and also grounds the pickup base and cover for noise shielding.
In a single conductor + braid cable (like the kit pickup), the green wire connects to the braid within the pickup, so it acts as both cable screen and pickup ground connection. Your pickup has these functions separated, so that the polarity of the pickup can be reversed to put it 'out of phase' with the bridge pickup if you connect it to a suitable switch. If you don't want that, then the green and braid will both be soldered to ground, and the black to the normal signal connection.
There is a small chance that there might be two different wiring conventions being used here, so you may find that the both 'pickups on' position sounds very thin and nasal, in which case you'll need to swap the green and black wire connections over (so don't cut the wires short). The braid remains connected to ground in both cases.
Last edited by Simon Barden; 02-09-2020 at 05:49 PM.
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