Need help with pickup wiring

[soulaco]

I am new to this thread but:


I have an HSH guitar and I recently purchased the Dimarzio Norton, Liquifire and Chopper rail pickup as pickup replacements. This guitar has a 5-way switch, 1 volume and 1 push/pull tone control



I wired in everything and everything sounds good in all positions except for the middle position. I am not sure I wired the rail pickup properly.



I put the lead (red) wire to the second switch lug and wired the inner coil wires (white/black) together but didn’t connect them to anything. I wired the ground (green) wire and the bare wire to ground on the back of the pot. Do I need to attach the inner coil wires (white/black) to anything?



It could be that I wired everything correctly and that Chopper is much lower output than the Norton and Liquifire, but I feel like I am not getting much power out of the middle pickup – almost like it’s in parallel or split or something.



Can someone help me with the wiring or send me a diagram for the guitar configuration I have? I guess with the rail pickup it’s an HHH guitar now, but I can’t seem to find any wiring instructions thatmatch my configuration.


Thanks

[cynical1]

Do you have a diagram of what you have wired up?

C1

[yanyan]

Mar 26, 2023 11:24:23 GMT -5 soulaco said:

I am new to this thread but:


I have an HSH guitar and I recently purchased the Dimarzio Norton, Liquifire and Chopper rail pickup as pickup replacements. This guitar has a 5-way switch, 1 volume and 1 push/pull tone control



I wired in everything and everything sounds good in all positions except for the middle position. I am not sure I wired the rail pickup properly.



I put the lead (red) wire to the second switch lug and wired the inner coil wires (white/black) together but didn’t connect them to anything. I wired the ground (green) wire and the bare wire to ground on the back of the pot. Do I need to attach the inner coil wires (white/black) to anything?



It could be that I wired everything correctly and that Chopper is much lower output than the Norton and Liquifire, but I feel like I am not getting much power out of the middle pickup – almost like it’s in parallel or split or something.



Can someone help me with the wiring or send me a diagram for the guitar configuration I have? I guess with the rail pickup it’s an HHH guitar now, but I can’t seem to find any wiring instructions thatmatch my configuration.


Thanks

It appears you wired the Chopper correctly: red to the switch, white and black together, and green and bare to ground. Don't connect the white+black join to anything; wrap the join in electrical tape  (or any tape really). If the join is exposed it might be touching ground, which effectively splits the pickup, hence the weaker output. The Chopper is loud and will keep up with everything else.

[soulaco]

Cool. Thanks! I used this diagram as a guide. I had to extrapolate out from it the 5-way switch instead of the 3-way and the rail pickup.

[newey]

Mar 26, 2023 16:09:51 GMT -5 soulaco said:

I had to extrapolate out from it the 5-way switch instead of the 3-way and the rail pickup.

The extrapolation is what we're going to need to see, you've added a third pickup in the mix and we don't know how that was done. But yanyan is correct, your description of the middle pickup wiring is correct. Is the low output apparent when you have only the middle pickup operating by itself, or just when combined with one of the others?

If it is low by itself, it sounds like a poor connection somewhere in there, or, as yanyan suggested, the series junction is grounding out.

[yanyan]

Mar 26, 2023 11:24:23 GMT -5 soulaco said:

I am new to this thread but:

Have you also balanced the pickup heights? Pickup heights play a huge role in how loud each pickup position sounds in relation to each other and, in a 3 pickup guitar, is all the more important to get right if you want balanced output from each position.

Start by setting the neck pickup height first and then move towards the bridge.

The Chopper was the middle pickup in my Strat for 27 years and it's one of my favorite single note tones.

Alternatively, setting the middle Chopper lower than the neck and bridge make for better in-between tones.