Cheap HH L.P.ish Clone

[D2o]

Hi Guys,

My apologies in advance for this long post:

I just picked up a non-functional (possibly "Samick") LP(ish) kind of guitar for dirt cheap because someone played around with the wiring and it no longer works.

Well, maybe it just never worked ... who knows?

Also, it is possibly possessed ... because my mulitimeter has coincidentally malfunctioned since I got this guitar ... it correctly reads "0" when I touch the two probes together but as soon as I seperate the probes the reading rapidly increases until it reads "1". Did I blow a fuse or something, or should I just get a new meter?

Anyway, back to the guitar:

It's two humbuckers each have only three wires (green, red, and black) ;

It seems to have one 500 K pot and two 100 K pots ;

The guitar has no pickguard or anything, so I can't really tell too much about where the wires are coming from and going to ... I am kind of guessing for the time being. Even worse, I am currently not with the guitar and so I am drawing on my memory glands.

On the other hand, since I am likely not going to leave the wiring as is, I guess it doesn't matter that much anyway.

Therefore, don't place a lot of weight on my following recollection of the guitar's innards ...

My apologies for having no pictures. Sorry, I do not own a digital camera yet.

My child does have one and if the resolution was greater than 1 megapixel and each picture didn't also include a Disney character in it, by golly, I would take some pictures. As it is, here's sort of what I remember is going on with the wiring ...

The green and black wires go to the back of one of the 100 K pots ;

The red wires go to the middle terminal on each of the 100 K pots ;

I can't really tell too much about what is going on with the 3 way switch, as there are a bunch of same color wires going from who knows where to the 3 way, and back to who knows where ...

... but, 2 of those wires coming from the 3 way switch seem go to the back of the 500 K pot, which also has the lone capacitor.

I don't know the capacitor value but has the following markings on it:
50 3M
R 50

The third wire from the 3 way seems to go to the output jack.

Since the guitar doesn't work, I guess it doesn't matter what it was supposed to be set up as, it is only important to determine what it will be set it up as.

So, what is the best way to set it up, given the pot values? ... 2 vol 1 tone, or 2 tone 1 vol? ... or even 1 vol 1 tone and just leave the other pot there, attached to nothing?

Will the 100 K pots be too murky?

Anyone got some ideas for pointing the wires in the correct direction, depending on what the suggestion is?

Here are a couple of links to wiring possibilities, from the Seymour Duncan site, but how would this work with only three wires?

www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2h_2v_1t_3w

www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2h_1v_2t_3w

Thanks in advance, guys - I appreciate your help.

[cynical1]

Greetings -

Sounds like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder wired this up...

I am more then certain more qualified people then I will chime in, but have you considered just gutting it and starting with known components?

My biggest personal concern would be that it has stopped working because the last person to perform the surgery on this guitar have rendered the innards DOA. Having worked on computers for more then 20 years I can state that nothing is more agonizing then trying to troubleshoot after some amateur has butchered a job and left no clues behind.

I bow out now and leave the floor to the members with a clue.

Happy Trails

Cynical1

[sumgai]

*DING* (Your choice as to whether that was an elevator bell, or the crack of doom! )

First up, your meter is most likely going nutso because the battery is just about dead. If you get the same behavior after replacing the battery, then it is truly on the way out, or more properly speaking, it has gone out. The only time I've ever seen something like this was when someone (and not me!) fed 120vAC into the Ohms input - they thought they were gonna measure the power transformer's primary input coil, and somehow managed to forget that the thing was plugged in.

Dan, how is it that you can't see the guts of this thing (other than it being very remote, at the time of your posting)? Samick is actually a quite high quality factory, although they make all levels of "quality output" for other brand names.... but their own self-labeled stuff is usually better than average. For that reason, I'd hate to think that they built a "back half" of the body, ladled in the electronics, then glued down the "top half" of that same body - that'd be crazy to even contemplate that. So please, when you have the unit in hand, tell us that we're not all thinking the worst here, eh?

You actually describe the wiring correctly (with one exception, see below), it has two volumes and one tone, but my money would lay on the bet that someone else replaced those two volume pots with whatever they had on hand at the magic moment. I can't fault the, remember, I'm the guy who espouses that one uses what's on hand first, before blowing good money on gasoline to go get a part. ....... ;D And the switching arrangement sounds right, albeit there is no color coding inside of that tangle. A bit wierd, but then again, it's likely the result of a butcher job, and not factory stock.

Notably, and what can't be helped in this design, the tone control comes between the pair of volume controls and the output jack. If you're hell-bent on replacing anything (and you should be), then I'd suggest that you buy a dual-gang 500KΩ pot, one that has two elements, but both are controlled by the same shaft/knob. This will let you place the individual tone controls before the volume pots, as per the usual practice. And of course, if you really want to, you can buy a concentric dual pot, a stacked configuration that has two knobs, independent of each other.

The two wires from the switch to the back of the tone pot? Those should have been mounted, one each, onto the Hot lug of a volume control! As thing stand now, the switch is selecting between Ground and Ground, and sending that onwards to the output jack - no wonder you get zip!

A photo is nice, but even a crayon sketch is better than bupkis, post for us whatever you can, eh?

HTH



sumgai

[D2o]

Thanks, Cyn

Sounds like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder wired this up...

LOL. I remember Ray Charles' line from "Home Improvement" when Tim asked him if he does his own renovations to his home: "Yeah. God only knows what they look like ..."

I am more then certain more qualified people then I will chime in, but have you considered just gutting it and starting with known components?

My biggest personal concern would be that it has stopped working because the last person to perform the surgery on this guitar have rendered the innards DOA. Having worked on computers for more then 20 years I can state that nothing is more agonizing then trying to troubleshoot after some amateur has butchered a job and left no clues behind.

I had thought of starting anew, but I got it so cheap that my brain is displaying "error" at the thought of spending in excess of that on parts, you know what I mean?

I may still, once I get this up and running and see if I like what I actually have.

Thanks, sumgai

Samick is actually a quite high quality factory, although they make all levels of "quality output" for other brand names.... but their own self-labeled stuff is usually better than average. For that reason, I'd hate to think that they built a "back half" of the body, ladled in the electronics, then glued down the "top half" of that same body - that'd be crazy to even contemplate that. So please, when you have the unit in hand, tell us that we're not all thinking the worst here, eh?

I had heard that Samick was of decent quality, but slightly discounted it as rumour ... until now that you have said it. There is no ID on the guitar, so who knows if it is Samick?

Well, yes and no, with respect to gaining access. What I did was remove the control cavity covers, pots, jack, pickups and 3 way to find out how it's all connected. There are little "channels" inside so that I was able to move some of the components around a bit ... but it was not as easy as working in a strat, by any means.

You actually describe the wiring correctly

Please see wiring diagram below.

Notably, and what can't be helped in this design, the tone control comes between the pair of volume controls and the output jack. If you're hell-bent on replacing anything (and you should be), then I'd suggest that you buy a dual-gang 500KÙ pot, one that has two elements, but both are controlled by the same shaft/knob. This will let you place the individual tone controls before the volume pots, as per the usual practice. And of course, if you really want to, you can buy a concentric dual pot, a stacked configuration that has two knobs, independent of each other.

Oh, but you forget who you are talking to! If I was constrained by even the slightest understanding of electronic theory, that would be true ... okay, okay, it's about time I start getting a little more exotic, but let me see if I can get it working first, before I get all creative

even a crayon sketch is better than bupkis, post for us whatever you can, eh?

What do you make of this? (note the black wire from the jack that goes nowhere, and that one green wire is not connected to anything)

[sumgai]

Dan,

OK, that's good enough.

I see that the wires from the switch are set according to Hoyle, so all that's left are two dis-connected jobbies, the green from the pickup (treat it like the other green, for now), and the black wire from the jack......... errrrr, isn't that supposed to be part of the signal path, mmmmmmmm? Like, shouldn't it be soldered onto the back of the same pot as the other ground wires (blacks, greens, etc.)?? Seems to me that would make a complete circuit, no?

If that doesn't work, then disconnect the green wire again, and see what happens.

HTH

Yes, bodies like this are made in two stages. The main portion is routed for the wiring, the cable harness is laid in, and then the top is glued on. The controls and pups are soldered in, tested, and then it's all buttoned up. Makes life "interesting", don't it? ;D


HTH,T



sumgai

[ChrisK]

Seems to me that would make a complete circuit, no?

Solution is.


Now, if'n I was making a low-cost guitar, I might be tempted to use powerfuller strong magnets and less wire.

Hmmm, that'd make the pickups a tad bright (less inductance).

Oh, yeah, I'd use 100 K volume pots and "take the edge off."

[JohnH]

It does look like grounding those loose green and black wires may well make it rise from the dead.

Are the pale grey braids also grounded somewhere? They aren't in the signal path but its important for them to do their screening noise reducing job.

I had 100k tone and volume pots in my two-humbucker guitar for about 30 years, untill I swapped them, and the tone control was after the volume pot too. All wrong, but it actually wasnt too murky, but it improved with 500k pots. I think the 100k volume pots may cope better than 500k's with having the tone pot downstream, as you do in this case with one tone and two volume pots.

John

[D2o]

Thanks again, sumgai, ChrisK and JohnH,

I soldered the black wire to the pot, and I figured that while I was at it I might as well solder the green to the pot as well, rather than detach the other that was already attached.

That way, if it didn’t work and the green should have been detached, the solution was just a quick vasectomy away … ”snip, snip”, right?

Well, it worked, except for a bit of hum when I touched the strings. Thanks for reminding me about the grounding, JohnH. I am so used to shielded guitars, that I forgot to run wires to and from the back of the volume and tone pots. No more hum, and John’s previous post on ground loops has alleviated most of the concern I have about that practice guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/v45index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1611 .

Each HB is measuring about 5.5 on the Richter Scale.

The tone seems a bit “muddy” … the 100 K pots, I guess. But my comparison to call it “muddy” is a Peavey T-15, which is a pretty hot little guitar, so in reality it is possibly no muddier than the last guitar I had with a HB in it.

It is gratifying to be a failure as a guitar “coroner” … it seems my deceased patient came back to life.