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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 4, 2006 13:26:21 GMT -5
Okay, since nobody's answered my question on the other thread...
I've got a strat with 3 x li'l killer HBs, no pots. The li'l killers are 5-wire pickups (4+shield). I used a 2 conductor+shield cable for the jack.
When I originally wired it up, I had the pup shields wired together, contacting the metal case of the switch (which contacts the foil shield on the pickguard, which contacts the shield in the cavity). These were also connected to the string ground and then to the shield on the jack cable. That shield was soldered to the ground lug on the jack, which is where it met signal ground.
I couldn't find the high voltage cap that is suggested in the QTB article. I'm not much worried about electricution since i play exclusively through a Behringer V-amp.
Because of some trouble I had, I went and cut all of the shield contacts all together. They now contact nothing, the cavity shielding contacts nothing. The string ground is tied directly to signal ground.
Do you think I should reconnect those shield wires? Was the original way I did it acceptable?
I would never have gotten this far without you guys. Thanks for all your help.
BTW - interestingly, if I "fret" the neck pup (push the string down on the rails of the pup to sound higher than the highest fret) that pickup seems to short out completely!?
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Post by borsanova on Nov 4, 2006 13:56:41 GMT -5
I don't understand all that you wrote, but that last thing is no good sign. It means that the pickup cover is hot and together with a defective amp this can become hazardous.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 4, 2006 19:19:55 GMT -5
I'd be happy to try to clarify if you were to ask specific questions about what confused you.
It's not actually the cover of the pickup, but the blades on the blade style HBs. I'm not particularly worried about a defective amp at this point.
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Post by JohnH on Nov 5, 2006 3:31:27 GMT -5
The fact the that fretting onto the HB rail shorts the sound suggests that maybe the pup is wired with hot and ground reversed, and why you had to disconnect the ground from the screen. Worth fixing IMO, at least to get the screening working, which needs to be grounded. I agree not much of a safety risk with an SS amp however.
John
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Post by UnklMickey on Nov 6, 2006 10:22:32 GMT -5
i'm not so sure losing sound from a pickup you are fretting on, indicates a wiring problem.
you will have only an extremely small string deflection, and only over the one portion of the coil between the rail and the bridge.
you should have a tiny signal from that pickup, and tonally it should be very 'bridgy'.
that's not to say, there can't be other issues.
just that what you've described seems fairly 'normal' to my expectations.
unk
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 6, 2006 12:59:34 GMT -5
unk I think it is actually shorting out. I'll check it out again, but it's not just the sound of the string that goes away.
i don't think the wiring is wrong. white +, black -, green +, red -. Aren't the rails just magnets? Should they be carrying electricity at all?
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Post by UnklMickey on Nov 6, 2006 15:09:05 GMT -5
the rails shouldn't have any electrical connection to the coils. it's possible there is an internal short to the rail, but that should be easy to test. also, if you made an error in the wiring and connected the shield of the pickup to the hot, OR the string ground to hot, that would also cause the sound to cease when you 'fretted' on the rail. but if the string ground was connected to hot, you'd have noticed a huge increase in hum, immediately when you touched the strings. ...white +, black -, green +, red -. ... i think GFS uses the SD color codes, so the + and - are all backward, from what you listed. but, since you're consistent, i don't THINK that should be a problem. unk
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Post by flateric on Nov 6, 2006 18:35:34 GMT -5
Yep, GFS are same as Seymour Duncans. Black is live+, green is -/earth, red adn white are the coil tap red- white+
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 6, 2006 23:24:39 GMT -5
Alright, y'all scared me with that one there. Had me thinking i had my coils out of phase with one another. But I was talking about string signal phase, I guess, more than the whole start/finish thing.
black>white and red>green will give the same string signal phase at the output,
and that will be the same as black>white>red>green in series mode
and black>white + red>green in parrallel mode.
However, on the neck and bridge pups, I have got black connected to the string ground. From what unk says, this will short out the signal as I've described. I still don't understand why, though, if the rails are not connected electrically to anything.
In the middle I've got red connected to ground (red>green>black>white in series mode), and that pickup doesn't have this problem.
So, what is the shield braid connected to internal to the pickup? Is it just the copper foil shield around the pickup? Just to clarify, at this time those braids are all trimmed back to the insulation, not wired to anything at all.
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Post by UnklMickey on Nov 7, 2006 1:47:30 GMT -5
if for the neck and bridge, you have black>white>red>green with black being ground and green being hot,
and for the middle: red>green>black>white with red being ground, and white being hot,
that all should work out fine.
the braid on the pickup should connect to the frame (if it's metal).
i think it might be time to do some checking with an ohmmeter.
i'm beginning to think the green is also connected to the rail , at least on your neck pickup. maybe it isn't supposed to be, but the insulation on the coil got scraped when they wound it.
if you have none of the braids connected, i would think between ground and any rail, should measure in the millions of ohms.
if it measures a few thousand ohms on any rail, that seems like a problem to me.
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