joelorigo
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Post by joelorigo on Sept 22, 2024 18:27:21 GMT -5
My son's friend has a Squire Affinity PJ Bass that we were told worked for 3 months and then just "quit working" and made a "buzzing sound." I have been building pedals for about 5 years and have done a little bit (but not a lot) of work on my guitars so I volunteered to take a look. When I plugged it in, it did make a buzzing sound and the fretted notes were slightly audible. I assumed that the ground wire on the output jack had broken off and when I unscrewed the jack, that is what I found. I had to open the control cavity to find the loose wire, which is the only loose wire in there, so I soldered it to the jack. But, it still wasn't working. I then started comparing wiring diagrams of the PJ bass and what I am seeing inside seems different in a few respects. The loose wire inside the cavity was from the bridge pickup which doesn't seem like it should be connected to the output jack in the first place. And I think the yellow wires are the hot wires from the pickups, so isn't it weird that the yellow from the bridge pickup is soldered to the bottom of the bridge volume pot, rather than a lug of the pot?  |
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Post by unreg on Sept 23, 2024 1:24:42 GMT -5
The loose wire inside the cavity was from the bridge pickup which doesn't seem like it should be connected to the output jack in the first place. Is the loose wire, from the bridge pup, the red wire? And I think the yellow wires are the hot wires from the pickups, so isn't it weird that the yellow from the bridge pickup is soldered to the bottom of the bridge volume pot, rather than a lug of the pot? Alternatively, notice that the neck pup has a ground wire and a hot yellow wire. While, the bridge pup must have a ground wire and it also appears its hot wire is red; thus, that would make its yellow a ground wire. You work on pedals so you must have a multimeter. You could check continuity from that bridge volume pot case to the sleeve of a connected guitar cable. If that lacks continuity then all the wires grounded to that pot case aren’t actually receiving ground. That’s probably not the case; I just checked that every solder spot had continuity in my guitar by just testing spots next to each piece the solder joins. If you find a dead solder spot, then remelt the solder… maybe clean the yellowing flux away with solder removal strips first, before remelting solder; permanently covering flux spots with solder doesn’t help.  |
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Post by cynical1 on Sept 23, 2024 9:02:13 GMT -5
There appears to be a distinct lack of documentation on Squier basses, but this is probably pretty close:  The wiring colors are not identical, but the logic is still likely valid. The buzzing\low output sounds like a short somewhere. Have you checked it with a meter? HTC1 |
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joelorigo
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Post by joelorigo on Sept 23, 2024 12:21:06 GMT -5
The loose wire inside the cavity was from the bridge pickup which doesn't seem like it should be connected to the output jack in the first place. Is the loose wire, from the bridge pup, the red wire? And I think the yellow wires are the hot wires from the pickups, so isn't it weird that the yellow from the bridge pickup is soldered to the bottom of the bridge volume pot, rather than a lug of the pot? Alternatively, notice that the neck pup has a ground wire and a hot yellow wire. While, the bridge pup must have a ground wire and it also appears its hot wire is red; thus, that would make its yellow a ground wire. Yes, I guess if the bridge pickup hot wire is red, unlike the neck pickup that, that would explain the wiring. You work on pedals so you must have a multimeter. You could check continuity from that bridge volume pot case to the sleeve of a connected guitar cable. If that lacks continuity then all the wires grounded to that pot case aren’t actually receiving ground. That’s probably not the case; I just checked that every solder spot had continuity in my guitar by just testing spots next to each piece the solder joins. If you find a dead solder spot, then remelt the solder… maybe clean the yellowing flux away with solder removal strips first, before remelting solder; permanently covering flux spots with solder doesn’t help. Thanks, for the help! No, the loose wire is black, and not really visible in the photo. I did check continuity after I soldered the loose wire to the jack. There is continuity on my new soldering between the output jack and between the wire. There is continuity between all ground points I tested (all the pots, the screw in the body, the bridge, etc.) but not to the jack. |
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joelorigo
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Post by joelorigo on Sept 23, 2024 12:24:58 GMT -5
There appears to be a distinct lack of documentation on Squier basses, but this is probably pretty close: The wiring colors are not identical, but the logic is still likely valid. The buzzing\low output sounds like a short somewhere. Have you checked it with a meter? HTC1 Yeah that's one of the ones that I found also. According to that, and others I found, the ground to the jack should be coming from the tone pot, not from the black wire from the neck pickup. Right? |
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Post by Yogi B on Sept 23, 2024 13:17:11 GMT -5
My guess is that — since the bridge pickup already has two other wires and resides its own, separate, cavity — the black wire coming from the bridge pickup connects to another lug screwed into that cavity.
The stock Squier wiring connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable.
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Post by unreg on Sept 23, 2024 16:10:18 GMT -5
There appears to be a distinct lack of documentation on Squier basses, but this is probably pretty close: The wiring colors are not identical, but the logic is still likely valid. The buzzing\low output sounds like a short somewhere. Have you checked it with a meter? HTC1 Yeah that's one of the ones that I found also. According to that, and others I found, the ground to the jack should be coming from the tone pot, not from the black wire from the neck pickup. Right? Yes, otherwise the pot shells wouldn’t be grounded. See the c1’s diagram above, the black, or ground, wires are soldered to the pots, and that allows them to be grounded as long as the ground wire from the master tone pot case is soldered to jack’s ground lug. If you remove that important connection and replace it with the neck pup’s ground wire, then only items connected to the neck pup ground wire will be grounded. Follow the superior mind of Yogi B… he believes, or thinks there is a lug, in its cavity, to solder that black wire to. If that’s the case then I’m sure that lug somehow connects to the jack’s ground lug, maybe through pot cases. According to the wiring diagram, the jack’s ground lug needs a wire from the master-tone pot case. |
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joelorigo
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Post by joelorigo on Sept 23, 2024 20:56:01 GMT -5
My guess is that — since the bridge pickup already has two other wires and resides its own, separate, cavity — the black wire coming from the bridge pickup connects to another lug screwed into that cavity. The stock Squier wiring connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable. I am not understanding " connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable." There are 3 wires soldered to the tip of the output jack: the white from the neck volume pot, the yellow from the neck volume pot and the red from the tone pot. The thing is the loose black wire from the bridge pickup was laying in the control cavity when I opened it, with very little exposed wire at the end. And the output jack sleeve had solder with a bit of wire embedded. It sure seems like it broke off of the sleeve. |
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Post by unreg on Sept 23, 2024 23:12:40 GMT -5
My guess is that — since the bridge pickup already has two other wires and resides its own, separate, cavity — the black wire coming from the bridge pickup connects to another lug screwed into that cavity. The stock Squier wiring connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable. I am not understanding " connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable." There are 3 wires soldered to the tip of the output jack: the white from the neck volume pot, the yellow from the neck volume pot and the red from the tone pot. It seems, to me, that the “‘3’-conductor cable” is that thick grey cable that contains the yellow, white, and red wires… those wires are the ones soldered to your jack’s hot lug? I’m guessing, from what sir Yogi B said, that there’s also a bare ground wire inside that thick grey sleeve/cable; the bare shield wire must have been soldered to your master tone pot case on one end and soldered to the jack’s ground lug on its other end. Perhaps that bare shield wire broke off on both ends, but if so, you’d be able to see that bare shield wire’s metallic tips at the edges of that grey sleeve/cable covering. And, if that’s the case, I suggest you simply ignore the, now-useless, bare shield wire and just run a new wire from master tone pot case to jack’s ground. If that isn’t the case, wait for yogi’s reply. |
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Post by newey on Sept 24, 2024 5:35:19 GMT -5
This would certainly work but it seems like a lot of unnecessary soldering to the jack tip's lug. As per the SD diagram, you could simply "daisy chain" the pots together, one to the other, and just have a single wire to the jack.
I doubt very seriously that the shielded 3-conductor cable is "stock" from Squier, someone has been in there previously for reasons unknown. My best (really, my only) suggestion would be to rewire it according to the SD diagram , and checking each component before rewiring it in.
Again, not as shown in the SD diagram, and this would have put the bridge pickup out of phase with the neck, unless the coil magnets were opposite polarity.
It is not clear that a rewiring will solve your issues, but whenever someone has rewired things in some odd fashion probably best to just start over.
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Post by Yogi B on Sept 24, 2024 9:26:18 GMT -5
I am not understanding " connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable." There are 3 wires soldered to the tip of the output jack: the white from the neck volume pot, the yellow from the neck volume pot and the red from the tone pot. It's pretty much as unreg said: running inside the grey jacket there should be a fourth uninsulated wire. Originally this would've been the only thing connected to the sleeve terminal. (Image from this eBay listing.) In the following image, from the same listing, you can see the other end of the bare shield connecting to the right-hand side of the bridge/Jazz volume pot. Furthermore, on the left-hand side, it is possible to just about make out that in addition to the two black wires that remain attached another two wires have been cut. It makes sense that these would be the 'negative' pickup leads (note the bridge/Jazz pickup has different wire colours, as evidenced by the scrap of green insulation left on the centre terminal). That leaves three other ground wires: the bridge/string ground soldered to the back of the tone pot (in the coiled bundle this will be the one with about an inch of insulation removed); and the two still soldered to the left-hand side of the bridge/Jazz volume. One of these has still has a terminal on the end and is most likely therefore the shielding ground for the main cavity. The other appears to have been cut, perhaps because a terminal of that size wouldn't fit through the cable routing between the main cavity & the bridge pickup cavity (if this wire were intrinsic to the pickup surely it would have been cut at the end connected to the pot, in order to preserve the wire length as has been done with the others). This third wire is what I think is your loose black wire. It does want to be connected to ground somehow, so having it soldered to the sleeve terminal of the socket is fine — but if that's the only ground wire connected to the socket then there's nothing connecting the rest of the circuit to ground.
I doubt very seriously that the shielded 3-conductor cable is "stock" from Squier It is a bizarre choice, but it is original. On a different iteration where they use a barrel socket ( see here), it makes even less sense: the things being connected via shielded wire are within the same (shielded) cavity. |
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joelorigo
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Post by joelorigo on Sept 24, 2024 22:09:54 GMT -5
I am not understanding " connects the output socket's ground to all the other grounds via the bare shield wire of the '3'-conductor cable." There are 3 wires soldered to the tip of the output jack: the white from the neck volume pot, the yellow from the neck volume pot and the red from the tone pot. It's pretty much as unreg said: running inside the grey jacket there should be a fourth uninsulated wire. Originally this would've been the only thing connected to the sleeve terminal. (Image from this eBay listing.) In the following image, from the same listing, you can see the other end of the bare shield connecting to the right-hand side of the bridge/Jazz volume pot. Furthermore, on the left-hand side, it is possible to just about make out that in addition to the two black wires that remain attached another two wires have been cut. It makes sense that these would be the 'negative' pickup leads (note the bridge/Jazz pickup has different wire colours, as evidenced by the scrap of green insulation left on the centre terminal). That leaves three other ground wires: the bridge/string ground soldered to the back of the tone pot (in the coiled bundle this will be the one with about an inch of insulation removed); and the two still soldered to the left-hand side of the bridge/Jazz volume. One of these has still has a terminal on the end and is most likely therefore the shielding ground for the main cavity. The other appears to have been cut, perhaps because a terminal of that size wouldn't fit through the cable routing between the main cavity & the bridge pickup cavity (if this wire were intrinsic to the pickup surely it would have been cut at the end connected to the pot, in order to preserve the wire length as has been done with the others). This third wire is what I think is your loose black wire. It does want to be connected to ground somehow, so having it soldered to the sleeve terminal of the socket is fine — but if that's the only ground wire connected to the socket then there's nothing connecting the rest of the circuit to ground.
I doubt very seriously that the shielded 3-conductor cable is "stock" from Squier It is a bizarre choice, but it is original. On a different iteration where they use a barrel socket ( see here), it makes even less sense: the things being connected via shielded wire are within the same (shielded) cavity. Ah ha! That's it! There IS a 4th, uninsulated, wire in the grey jacket. It is barely sticking out of either end so I didn't see it. If I understand what you are saying, that wire needs to connect to a pot case on one end, and to the sleeve of the output jack on the other? And the ground wire from the bridge/jazz pickup could also stay where I currently have it (on the output jack sleeve), or also be re-moved and also connected to a pot case? There is so little of the uninsulated wire peeking out on both sides from the grey jacket that no wonder they snapped off. There must have been a good amount of physical stress on each side. Can I attach a little bit of extra wire to each end to receive this stress? |
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Post by unreg on Sept 25, 2024 7:42:59 GMT -5
Ah ha! That's it! There IS a 4th, uninsulated, wire in the grey jacket. It is barely sticking out of either end so I didn't see it. There is so little of the uninsulated wire peeking out on both sides from the grey jacket that no wonder they snapped off. There must have been a good amount of physical stress on each side. Can I attach a little bit of extra wire to each end to receive this stress? And, if that’s the case, I suggest you simply ignore the, now-useless, bare shield wire and just run a new wire from master tone pot case to jack’s ground. I would do that since soldering wires to each end of a useless bare shield wire encased in a grey jacket would be difficult, imho. If there’s room in the jack tunnel for an extra wire, and you can easily push a new wire through, then I’d definitely do that. But, if you want to use that bare shield wire, then you should first make sure that wire still has continuity. If it’s broken inside that grey jacket too, you’ll have to use an extra, thin, insulated wire to make that extremely important master tone pot case to jack’s ground lug connection. EDIT: (uninsulated == bare) And, that bare shield wire is probably NOT broken inside the grey jacket; but testing it before spending time soldering to it, if you do that, is wise. if you do, check continuity from both tips of that bare shield wire; since you’ll be soldering to the tips, you want to make sure the tips aren’t covered with rust (or anything that prevents continuity). |
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Post by reTrEaD on Sept 25, 2024 9:13:02 GMT -5
There is so little of the uninsulated wire peeking out on both sides from the grey jacket that no wonder they snapped off. There must have been a good amount of physical stress on each side. Can I attach a little bit of extra wire to each end to receive this stress?Absolutely. However I do advise caution. Too much uninsulated wire leads to the possibility of it touching against something we don't want it to touch. For instance, the portion of the output jack that makes contact with the tip of the guitar cable. I'd recommend using insulated wire for your extensions. Solder the extension to the the uninsulated wire. Then slip some heat-shrink tubing over the splice. Then solder the end of the insulated wire to the sleeve lug of the output jack. |
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joelorigo
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Post by joelorigo on Sept 28, 2024 15:22:45 GMT -5
It's all fixed!
I connected the ground from the bridge / jazz pickup to the tone pot. A new wire goes from the tone pot to the output jack sleeve. And I noticed that the red / white / yellow wires were about to break off of the tip of the jack, so I unsoldered those and fixed that.
Thanks for getting me through this. I think my son's friend will be happy!
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