Wiring.

[Longprong7]

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


Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Grandpa

[Simon Barden]

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.

[Longprong7]

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

[McCreed]

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



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.

[Longprong7]

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

Cheers

Jim

[Longprong7]

another pic

[McCreed]

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?

[Simon Barden]

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.

[Longprong7]

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

Cheers

Jim

[Longprong7]

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