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Post by ssstonelover on Aug 4, 2007 16:52:29 GMT -5
Hi Guys, In Guitarnuts John Atchley showed us how to Quiet the Beast, and I was one of many who implemented the solution. QTB was presented more as a step by step than as a complete drawing and this slowed me as I painstakingly went through it, one small section at a time. Recently I decided it would be valuable to present this as a complete schematic, both for the newbies -- and for those who wanted to use it a springboard for their own modifications -- so here it is. I also thought it would be useful to add (as variants) some of John’s other schematics to show how much could be done – after using QTB as the launch point. In the same spirit I also have added in a schematic from Chris Kinman (his K7 pickup setup) along with some ideas from other people. The version I've personally implemented used Chris Kinman's K7 blending (all 7 pup parallel combos) on one of the pots, along with master tone, and a treble bleed on the volume pot. The only difficulty I had (outside of correcting a crossed wire) was muddiness on the blender pot, but adding a treble bleed cap there too solved that, so there some kind of unexpected interaction due to unknown reasons. I'm no EE....so you guys can figure that out and let me know. Please use this with the text from "quieting the beast", which gives cap values, etc.— There is a lot of good information and advice -- which an illustration can’t cover as cleanly -- that makes a difference to the sound, and which of course explains the principles involved. A special thanks to Sumgai who has acted as a mentor prodding along improvements in the basic layout and text callouts. The ideas for the bottom drawing come from his unyielding eye to clean out the last remaining volume ground back to the star point, etc. This should now be ‘final product’. Post questions and comments on the original thread to this link so they are all kept in the same place. guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1185096538Happy picking (and soldering) Bill (SSS tone lover)
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bluesman13
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Post by bluesman13 on Nov 14, 2016 17:55:23 GMT -5
thanks you for the diagrams. It really helped. I have a question regarding the sumgai diagram at the bottom. This variant adds a ground wire from the star ground on the volume or tone pot to the pickup cavity where the tremolo is grounded. My question is - if the pickups are attached to the star ground on the tone or vol pot, and the tone of vol pot is touching the copper shielding on the pickguard, and the copper shielding on the pickup guard touches the copper shielding on the guitar cavity, is the separate ground wire from the tone/vol to the guitar cavity necessary?
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Post by newey on Nov 14, 2016 23:13:28 GMT -5
bluesman13-
Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!
The tremolo/bridge needs to be grounded in some fashion. If you ground it to the cavity shielding, which is then, in turn, in contact with the pickguard shielding, which is then tied into the star ground, it should work just fine. But check with a meter to be sure all those points in the chain are actually connected (ultimately) to the output jack sleeve.
Running a second wire, though, eliminates any question about the efficacy of the ground path through the shielding.
Here, we're also only speaking of how to run the various shield grounds. One thing that you should not do is to run any signal (i.e., your pickup wiring) through the shielding. As a general rule, it's a good practice to not utilize shielding to carry signal.
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Post by sumgai on Nov 14, 2016 23:44:16 GMT -5
bm13, Hi, and welcome to The NutzHouse! (If this messagage gets garbled, the cat is "helping me out" here. ) My question is - if the pickups are attached to the star ground on the tone or vol pot, and the tone of vol pot is touching the copper shielding on the pickguard, and the copper shielding on the pickup guard touches the copper shielding on the guitar cavity, is the separate ground wire from the tone/vol to the guitar cavity necessary? The short answer is yes, if you agree with my following logic. What I advocated was that the string ground should not be dependent on the shielding in order to keep buzzing down to a minimum. If any faulty contact happens to develop between the bridge (or the vibrato claw) and any part of the circuit that depends on the shielding material, then humming/buzzing will certainly become unacceptable. My "extra" wire serves to ensure that the path between string ground and the output jack has the fewest possible points of potential failure, and that they depend on good solid (soldered) connections, not just a simple pressure contact.
IOW, what's the price of a piece of wire and a few moments of soldering time, versus suffering through a poor pressure contact that permits hum/buzz, until you can open the axe up (again!) to fix it.
Does that clear things up for you?
sumgai
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bluesman13
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Post by bluesman13 on Nov 15, 2016 8:56:35 GMT -5
Sumgai,
makes perfect sense! I don't understand that much about electronics, but I am good at following directions - so I will add the ground wire on there. To make things more confusing for me, I'm left handed so I had reverse some of the connections. I completed the star ground on this guitar a long time ago, then bought a pre wired harness from Kinman and have using that until a couple of weeks ago. I just put the original pickups back in, but Ihad to replace a faulty pickup selector switch. After I did that, I realized that the wiring to the selector switch was incorrect and that accounted for the less than stellar sound. Fortunately, I have the pre wired harness amd was able to copy and now it sounds fine (other than my dreadful soldering skills). I modified the the wiring since I wanted a master tone control rather than separate ones. I don't care so much about repurposing the lower tone control as a blender pot, but wired it that way anyway. Do you think bleed through is an issue and I should use a 500k pot in there? Thx for the response.
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bluesman13
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Post by bluesman13 on Nov 15, 2016 9:02:51 GMT -5
bluesman13- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!Sorry, I don't understand. The three ground wires from my pickups go to a star ground which attaches to a pot, which touches the pickguard shielding. Is the correct way to do it? Thx!
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Post by newey on Nov 15, 2016 10:50:10 GMT -5
Does the star ground also connect to the output jack sleeve connection? If so, that's fine. My point was not to use the shielding to connect "in between" the pickup grounds and the output jack sleeve.
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bluesman13
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Post by bluesman13 on May 19, 2017 9:02:32 GMT -5
bm13, Hi, and welcome to The NutzHouse! (If this messagage gets garbled, the cat is "helping me out" here. ) My question is - if the pickups are attached to the star ground on the tone or vol pot, and the tone of vol pot is touching the copper shielding on the pickguard, and the copper shielding on the pickup guard touches the copper shielding on the guitar cavity, is the separate ground wire from the tone/vol to the guitar cavity necessary? The short answer is yes, if you agree with my following logic. What I advocated was that the string ground should not be dependent on the shielding in order to keep buzzing down to a minimum. If any faulty contact happens to develop between the bridge (or the vibrato claw) and any part of the circuit that depends on the shielding material, then humming/buzzing will certainly become unacceptable. My "extra" wire serves to ensure that the path between string ground and the output jack has the fewest possible points of potential failure, and that they depend on good solid (soldered) connections, not just a simple pressure contact.
sumgai
OK, just getting back to this. To make sure i understand, the wire that goes to the ground in the body of the guitar, is attached to the "star" capacitor directly before it attaches to the shaft of the tone pot?
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Post by sumgai on May 19, 2017 10:02:17 GMT -5
bluesy,
I think you may have mis-used a term here or there, but I believe I understand your intent. So the answer is yes, put the wire to the cap, then to the ring under the tone pot, and you should be all set.
sumgai
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bluesman13
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Post by bluesman13 on May 21, 2017 22:59:38 GMT -5
SG,
I've already got a .022 cap on my tone pot as in the diagrams. I'm adding a treble bypass to the volume pot as listed in the diagram. And I was thinking do I need both? Is one maintaining consistent treble when you adjust the volume and the other when you adjust the tone?
thx.
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Post by newey on May 22, 2017 6:00:15 GMT -5
The cap on the tone pot is what makes it a tone control. Take it away, and you've just got . . . a pot. As you turn the control down, some of the signal is shunted to ground through the cap. The cap, however, preferentally shunts upper frequencies, leaving you with a bassier tone.
The treble bleed circuitry is designed to avoid loss of treble as the volume control is turned down, as you stated. So, yes, you need both, if you're installing a treble bleed.
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bluesman13
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Post by bluesman13 on May 22, 2017 23:28:40 GMT -5
thx newey. I think I'm actually starting to understand some of this stuff...
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Post by lakesidepark on Jul 2, 2018 14:28:32 GMT -5
One simple little doubt, the ground wire of the strat tremolo is wired with the pickups, volume wires, or is wired after the 330nF/630V capacitor. In original article I'nst clear to understand.
Thanks
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Post by newey on Jul 2, 2018 21:46:30 GMT -5
lakeside- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!. Despite the pronouncements in the original GuitarNuts article on shielding, the 330nf cap (The "safety cap") provides only limited protection from certain particular ground faults which are possible with vintage tube amps. If you aren't using a vintage tube amp, the odds of you experiencing a fault where the cap would protect you are pretty slim. I shield all my builds as per the "Shielding the Beast" plan, but I omit the "safety cap" as unnecessary. Required reading: ChrisK's "The Blocking Capacitor"In answer to your question, the cap goes between your star grounding point and the output jack. The trem/string grounds, and all other grounds, are collected to the star grounding point before the capacitor. The idea is that the cap isolates you (at least partially) from the strings (which you could well be touching . . .), from the pickups, and controls. So the cap comes after all those grounds are assembled together, last in line before the output.
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Post by lakesidepark on Jul 3, 2018 11:26:21 GMT -5
Thanks I'm using an 1600V cap as block capacitor with my old Sovteck Major pure plate voltage its 1200V for the KT150. I don't want be one Ace Frehley 'Shock Me'. Thanks
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