why oh why.....

NoQuarter

is my neck pickup working but the other 2 arent????

this soldering larky aint as easy as i thought!!!


the connections look the same as with the neck pickup but they just aint working!! its a strat!


any ideas?????

Paolo_M

king-stew wrote: »

is my neck pickup working but the other 2 arent????

this soldering larky aint as easy as i thought!!!


the connections look the same as with the neck pickup but they just aint working!! its a strat!


any ideas?????

Could you post a photo of your work so far, together with the wiring diagram you're following and pick up type/make, and it'll make it much easier to help you.

NoQuarter

sure mate, wiring diagram is basically here: http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stockstrat.php im using the bottom pic as the top one is like hyrogliphics to me.

pickups are kinman woodstock plus: http://www.kinman.com/html/myProducts.htm


and pics: (no laughing its my 1st soldering attempt):










cheers!


EDIT- made pics a bit bigger

Paolo_M

king-stew wrote: »

sure mate, wiring diagram is basically here: http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stockstrat.php im using the bottom pic as the top one is like hyrogliphics to me.

pickups are kinman woodstock plus: http://www.kinman.com/html/myProducts.htm


and pics: (no laughing its my 1st soldering attempt):










cheers!


EDIT- made pics a bit bigger

Do you have a multi-meter with continuity/ohm reading?
Maybe it's the few cans I've had but I can't see the wiring that clearly from your photo's, can you post a close up of the selector switch wiring and the lugs of the vol/tone pots seperatley.
It's a squire strat I'm guessing?

NoQuarter

no afraid i dont have a multi-meter!

its a custom strat, im assembling it from seperate parts so i started from scratch on the wiring!

i had to put the guitar away before i threw it out the window so ill throw up them pics after work tomorrow!!

Paolo_M

king-stew wrote: »

no afraid i dont have a multi-meter!

its a custom strat, im assembling it from seperate parts so i started from scratch on the wiring!

i had to put the guitar away before i threw it out the window so ill throw up them pics after work tomorrow!!

Cool, kudos on the custom build.
I'll keep an eye out tomorrow evening for the photo's and try to help if I can.

Fingers Mcginty

Yeah it's hard to tell from the pics but I suspect you have the 5 way switch wired wrong.

BuddhaJoe

Okay, I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to stuff like this so I might be wwaayy off here but it looks like you have soldered all the wires from the pickups onto the volume pot and then onto the 5 way switch. Generally you would cut open the end of the heat shrink/insulation coming from each pickup to reveal 2 or more separate wires. Since more than likely it is just 2 wires it should be wired similarly to the diagram below with one wire going to the volume pot and one wire going to the 5 way switch. Please bear in mind I'm far from an expert, I'm deathly hungover and your pictures are really small so I may be seeing this all wrong so please wait for someone more knowledgeable to chime in before doing anything :pac:

NoQuarter

thanks for the suggestion joe but the kinman pickups have 1 wire, but half way up the wire some copper wire sticks out and the guide says to solder the tips of them to the volume case!!!

here is the switch!


PS: what happened my other pics!?!??

Voodu Child

Its hard to know where your problem is coming from without being able to see everything clearly in one shot, but I would definitely tackle the soldering first. It doesnt look great. Points for a first attempt though

You should practice with some odds and sods, read/watch some tutorials, fix up a few cables, maybe try and get someone to help your with your first project, or to have a peek at the job you've done and give you a few pointers. Even just watching over someone elses shoulder while they do it for you.

Fingers Mcginty

The solder joints look alright.
"but half way up the wire some copper wire sticks out" ....these ground wires should be soldered together at the volume pot body. Each main pickup wire should be going to the 5 way switch. Have you done this???

NoQuarter

they are all grounded on the vol pot case but not soldered together! attached to the pot at slightly different locations!

they all then continue on to the switch yep!

the 2 red ends and the black end attaching to the switch in above pic are the pickup wires(black being the bridge)

NoQuarter

i dont suppose this makes a difference but the only difference i can see between my wiring and the diagram above is that the switch is slightly different, as in the 4 switch things on the left(as we look at it) are the ones further away from the pickups and the 4 on the right are the ones closest to the pickups, i dont know if that made sense to anyone!

Fingers Mcginty

You will need a meter to remedy this. Beg borrow or steal and get back to us.

Paolo_M

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

You will need a meter to remedy this. Beg borrow or steal and get back to us.

^+1 on this.
We're shooting in the dark otherwise. You can get one in Maplin for about €12 like the one in this photo. I was able able to fully check each solder joint for continuity as well as measure the DC resitance of the pick ups before ever re-assembling the guitar. It's essential equipment for this kind of work.
The switch does seem a bit odd. You've it oriented correctly but the lugs appear to be back wards. I've only ever seen strat switches like the one shown on guitarnuts.com or with each lug on the pick-up side of the switch. Where did this one come from?

NoQuarter

thanks i will pick one of those up 1st chance i get, the switch came from stewmac!

Paolo_M

king-stew wrote: »

thanks i will pick one of those up 1st chance i get, the switch came from stewmac!

Based on the StewMac wiring diagram for the switch the two tone wires wires should be connected to the lugs adjacent to the jumper wire joing both sides ie. the two left most wires on the spring side of the switch should both be one lug to the left as we look at your picture.
Try wiring it like this first and let us know how you get on.

NoQuarter

i think its wired as per stewmac diagram but still no luck, neck pickup ok, but the rest are silent, have a multimeter now!

now to figure out what the hell to do with it!!????

Paolo_M

king-stew wrote: »

i think its wired as per stewmac diagram but still no luck, neck pickup ok, but the rest are silent, have a multimeter now!

now to figure out what the hell to do with it!!????

OK, so you've changed over those two lugs and no luck.
Grab your meter and plug in the two probes as directed in the intructions for making resistance measurements in the meter manual.
You'll need to check the pickups and each straight wire.

To check the pickup wiring do the following:

• Set the meter to read the 20k ohm range
• Use the red probe to make a solid connection to the metal part of the switch where you've soldered the "hot" pick-up lead.
• Use the black probe to make a connection to the metal part of the back of the volume pot. This is where you've soldered the "ground" lead.
• Do not probe the solder as this does not verify the connection to the pot, switch etc.
• Single coil pick-ups should read between 5 and 8 k ohms when wired properly, humbuckers (like the one I installed on my guitar) will read between 7k and 18k usually depending on the model. The manufacturers web-site give you these values for each model. For example check out the Seymour Duncan website.
• Do this for each pick-up
• It's good practise to gently wriggle the wire and re check to ensure it's a good solid connection. Sometimes you can get a false good reading from a dodgy joint. I bought a set of the clip fittings 'cause you can poke the wiring with a chopstick with the probes still connected which is great especially for amp work. Your probes will do just fine for now though.
• If you're much above these ranges on any pick-up then you've made a hash of the soldering and need to re-do it and test again.
• It doesn't actually matter which way around you connect the probes as it's pure DC resistance you're measuring, but I like to follow the red-hot and black-ground convention

To check the straight wires connecting the pots, switchs and jack do the following:

• Set the meter to it's lowest ohm setting, mines 200m.
• Probe either end of each wire using the same technique as above. Again, it doesn't matter which way around for resistance.
• You should see a low value, mines about .4, for a good connection.
• Anything much above this means you've made a hash of the soldering and need to go re do the soldering and re test.
• Do this for each connection, right the way through to the output jack, replacing any dodgy wiring along the way.

If you are re soldering joints I do strongly recommend using a solder gun to pick up excess solder for both neatness sake but also for the integrity of your wiring.

If you need further explaination of any of this or still can't find you're problem just pop up another post and I'll try and help.
Best of luck.

NoQuarter

hi paulo, thanks a million for that,

the problem seems to be the midde and bridge pickup, theres a readng from the neck pickup no probs but barely any from the middle and the bridge is on the verge of a negative reading!! and ideas??


there are little lugs on the end of the pickup wires and perhaps the wire inside is not actually touching the lug??? should i cut the ends of the pickup wire and make sure the wire itself is soldered to the switch?????

Paolo_M

king-stew wrote: »

hi paulo, thanks a million for that,

the problem seems to be the midde and bridge pickup, theres a readng from the neck pickup no probs but barely any from the middle and the bridge is on the verge of a negative reading!! and ideas??


there are little lugs on the end of the pickup wires and perhaps the wire inside is not actually touching the lug??? should i cut the ends of the pickup wire and make sure the wire itself is soldered to the switch?????

Just so I'm doubly sure, what's the reading you get on the neck PU?
When you say you had barely any reading on the bridge and middle do you mean that you keep getting a 1 on the left of the meter screen or a very low reading, as in just a couple of ohms?
Is it possible to take a measurement from above the lug on the bare "hot" wire I can't quite see from the pic. If we get a good reading there between the bare hot wire and the pot I think it's safe to assume that removing the lug and re soldering the bare wire to the switch lug will solve the problem. It looks like you might have to remove some of the heat shrink tubing to do this but that's ok.
Could you also verify your pot soldering by setting the meter to the lowest setting and using the probes between the shield wire for each of the two pickups and the pot itself to ensure that they have a good connection. Again making sure to probe the bare shield and metal part of the pot itself and not the solder.
Remember to use your solder sucker to remove the excess solder when re soldering.:p

It's possible that the pickup shipped with a protective, non conductive lug on the end of the wires but if it did that's news on me. In fact I've yet to see a pickup with a lug on the end of the wires but you live and learn eh.:pac:

NoQuarter

the reading from the neck is in the 7's, from the middle and bridge i mean its reading ohms but very low! and the bridge seems to go negative for a bit before returning to around 0!! just tried again there and the middle is just reading the 1 on the left!

i cany quite see the copper wire itself as such, just the metal end/lugs coming out of the attached to the end, ive replaced the switch and its the same story! i think im gonna have to remove the lugs and just strip the shielding to the bare wire itself and hope for the best!


EDIT**

well ive just removed the shielding and i can clearly see the copper wire from the middle pickup and there is no reading whatsoever from it, i just get the 1 on the left(i have same meter as you)

could it be anything to do with the pickup wire grounded to the volume pot?? i have the 3 parts that are supposed to ground twisted together and soldered to vol case??

NoQuarter

ok so an update:

ive fixed the middle pickup!!

if you look at pic 1 attached, the tiny red wire on the left as we look at it that connects to the base plate of the pickup wasnt connected!!! so that wasnt my fault!!

BUT! the bridge pickup still aint working, both pics are that the bridge pickup, the wires look connected to me so im stumped again, the reading is still going negative at 1st and then makes its way to 0.00

there is one thing though, ya cant see it in the photo because ive stripped the end off the wire but there was a black covering on the end(part that connects to switch) while on both neck & middle pickups the covering was red, could this signify the change in positive/negative????


pic 1


pic2

Paolo_M

Great news on the middle pick-up.

On the bridge pick-up; there's a short somewhere in the circuit.
I'm assuming that you're getting these readings with the bridge pick-up removed (de-soldered) completely from the guitar? If so we can obviously eliminate the guitar wiring from the problem. If you haven't already done this can you do it now?
If it reads good out of the circuit then we need to look at the guitar wiring in more detail.
If it reads bad still you have two options
1. Contact the supplier for warranty exchange or refund as this will be the second "bad" pick-up of the three that they sold you.
2. You could further investigate by de-soldering one of the wires from the base plate. You can now measure the DC resistance purely of the pick-up itself by probing the two solder point's on the base plate. As usual you can expect to see in the region of 7k ohm ish. If it still reads 0 ohms then the pick-up is damaged. If it's a good reading then your "hot" and shield have shorted somewhere along it's length and you could replace it with some new, same gauge shielded cable.

I personally think the first option would be best as the supplier would have sold you faulty goods and you're entitled to a warranty exchange or refund as a consumer. Also note that if you do decide to try out option 2. and it turns out that the pick-up itself was faulty then the supplier is within his rights to refuse you your warranty as you have modified or as they would see it "damaged" the product yourself. This is unless, of course, that you do a very convincing job of re-soldering the wire but we couldn't advocate trying to fool a supplier!!

NoQuarter

Well paulo you were indeed right! I fixed it yesterday after popping into town, a place called guitarfix(which i never even knew was there) and the bloke basically said what you did!! the wire was shorting somewhere!

the problem was option number 2! i took off the original wires and soldered my own on and hey-presto!

now that i have a basic stock strat set-up working i have a MODboard here that im gonna try solder in so i would expect this thread to be bumped in the next few days with my most recent problem(s)!! :D:eek:

im just dissapointed that i spent 260 on these pickups and the wiring wasnt spot on, they better sound bloody great to make up for this!!!!


Paulo thanks a million for the help, it was greatly appreciated!!