Stealth tele with everything

[dannyhill]

Sorry :-(

Actually its an 8 lug switch, I wired it based on this:

Ah hell, I was comparing lug labelling on strat and import 5 ways!
Found a new comparison diagram for 3 way blades here:
static.zoovy.com/img/guitarelectronics/-/diagrams/wiring_mods/3way_lever_switch_cross_refrence

Oh well, heat the soldering iron again!
Doh!

D

[newey]

The lugs and the labelling for a 3-way and a 5-way are exactly the same, as a 5-way switch is just the same as a 3-way but with 2 extra "notch" positions between lugs 1-2 and between 2-3.

Again, before you start flinging solder around, I suggest you give us the wiring you have currently, as I requested in the last post. It may not be necessary to completely rewire the switch, but we need to know how you have it wired currently.

[dannyhill]

The solder has been flying around.
;D

I wired it up according to your diagram, just reading neck for bridge and vicerversa. I then transposed the Fender labelling of the lugs you made the connections to for those for an import switch.

Inadevertently I broke the outs to the jack due to a short lead - amazing, got nothing!

So having been back on the iron again I've finally finished and tested. The bridge sounds wonderful, but ere,.... no neck PUP sounds.
In fact bridge only works in 1st position (vol in or out) and 2nd when volume pulled out.

Gonna get something to eat. Food for the soul.
Does this help?

D

[dannyhill]

This is really bugging me.
Could it be I have the neck pup wired the wrong way around?
Thanks in advance,

Daniel

[newey]

If you're getting no output whatsoever from the neck pup, then it's not just a matter of reversing the leads. Doing so would put it out of phase but you'd still get some output.

In fact bridge only works in 1st position (vol in or out) and 2nd when volume pulled out.

This all indicates a bad connection in the neck side of things. You're not getting the neck pup at all, and when the Vol control series/parallel is pulled, you lose the bridge as the series chain is broken due to the neck being disconnected somewhere. It is also possible that it is shorting to ground rather than being disconnected.

Please double check all the neck pickup connections, working you way out from the pickups themselves. Hit all the solder joints on the neck side of things again with your iron, sometimes a bad solder joint will get fixed that way. Also look for the odd strand of wire touching another lug or another wire.

Was the neck pickup known to be good prior to your installation of it?

[dannyhill]

Hi Newey,

About the reversal or leads, I suspected what you said, but it was worth a gamble as I was

It does seem the case with the neck being disconnected.

I will check all the neck connections again.

The PUP was good, although I have taken it out as it was screwed into the cavity and I wanted it suspended from the plate. Unfortunately the holes are too big for the bolts I have and may not be threaded. My neighbour is bringing some M2.5 nuts tonight.

In terms of grounding at the moment. The screws contact the base of the pup and they screw through copper tape and into the wood of the cavity. I also have a wire with connection rings each end, one between the spring and hole of pup base and the other screwed into copper tape/wood. Another wire is screwed into tape and goes to control cavity where it is soldered next to wire from bigsby/bridge onto more copper tape.

The neck pup is a GFS Alnico Fatbody Oversized Polepiece Tele Neck Pickup. It has only two wires, neither connected to a ground. There is two blobs of solder where two narrow copper wires are connected and back from there it looks from what little can be seen that the wires branch from back there somehow. In any case I have had the pup out touching an insulating surface without any contact to guitar ground and it still didn't work.

Furthermore I contacted the pup on a 20k ohm scale of the multimeter and I get 5.4k ohm, so it seems to be still working.
Its got to be one of the neck contacts then. Its not those for the two wires of the neck pup as I have had them on and off and switched two or three times and nothing.

The only other thing it might be is the switch. As you know I did go a bit mad with the soldering iron and some solder ran down from two or three contacts. I sucked most of it up and then held it upside down and heated them so any remaining solder ran back down. I took a close up look and it seems fine from what I can see.

thanks,

Danny

[dannyhill]

Just a mad thought.
Shouldnt my switch wiring be reversed. YOu have yours wired up for bridge on its own in 1st position etc.
I have my neck connected there.
Or is it just the case of turning the switch around physicallY?
Cheers,

Danny

[dannyhill]

Ok, now we are getting somewhere.
I rewired some neck side connections, now have sound from all positions except neck and bridge in parallel in/out of phase.
Going to see if I can find that one.

D

[newey]

Just a mad thought.
Shouldnt my switch wiring be reversed. YOu have yours wired up for bridge on its own in 1st position etc.
I have my neck connected there.
Or is it just the case of turning the switch around physicallY?

It's just a case of turning it around physically, if the wires to it are long enough to allow you to do so. If not, the wiring would need to be mirror-imaged (#3 becomes #1, etc.).

Sounds like you have/had at least two faults. Your attention should now be directed to the series/parallel switch. When in parallel, do you get any output, or nothing? Does the series setting work OK, in or OOP?

[dannyhill]

I get both PUPs in middle position, both in and out of phase. But in parallel both are off, in phase or out of phase. A kill switch, great!
Seriously, which connections should I be checking to solve the parallel problem? I don't understand how each connection on the switch relate to each of the three positions.
Cheers,

Danny

[dannyhill]

I get both PUPs in middle position, both in and out of phase. In series that is.

[newey]

Seriously, which connections should I be checking to solve the parallel problem? I don't understand how each connection on the switch relate to each of the three positions.

Look at the P/P switch on the volume pot. As you look at the diagram, the center lugs connect to the lugs on the right (which are jumpered together) for the series connection. With the center lugs connected to the left-side lugs, you get parallel.

I am doing this with reference to the diagram since I don't know which way you wired it in the actual guitar (since the P/P isn't really sideways).

It really doesn't matter which way you wired it so long as you followed the diagram, since choosing the other set of lugs will only reverse the Push/pull action- IOW, it will only affect whether you get series when pulled out or when pushed in.

But check the parallel connections, particularly the ground connection. Also note that, in the diagram, wires that cross each other are not connected unless shown with a dot at the connection site.

The 3-way switch wiring to position 2 cannot be the problem, or you wouldn't get the series setting either. The fact that you get the series, but not the parallel, points to the Vol pot P/P wiring as the problem.

[dannyhill]

Ok,something bizzare, if I disconnect A2, then in middle parallel position the bridge is then on, but no neck. All other positions are the same.
If I instead disconnect B2 I get neck on in middle parallel position, but no bridge.
??

[dannyhill]

OK, I agree.
On your diagram on the volume pot p/p you have a black wire going from bottom left lug to the bottom left of the tone p/p. Is that right or is just each are going to a common ground?
As I have it, I have those two shorted and then each lug has a wire going to ground which is on the back of the volume pot (grounded front lug has been bent back and soldered to back of pot).

I will remove that extra wire and see what happens.
In the worse case I would be just removing a possible ground loop.

D

[dannyhill]

Nope, still the same.
??

[dannyhill]

Hi again,

It seems like there is some sort of grounding issue as all these test are with the pots and switch 'floating' i.e. sat on the wood or plastic of the guitar.
I've checked and it seems that as soon as the volume pot is screwed tight against the shielded pickguard the neck switches off for all settings. The bridge pup is mounted in the pickguard and being wired earths the pickguard.

So I have an grounding problem. Incidentally I have all my earths going to a bent back lug on the vol pot. I did make any connections to the back of my tone pot.

OK, so I realised that my connections are close or touching the Al foil on the back of the pickguard, so I put some insulating tape there under the contacts. No change, so maybe they were not touching?
This means that the cut out occurs when the pot casing itself touches the Al foil.

Ok, now I'm starting to get annoyed.

Cheers,

Daniel

[newey]

Hmm. It may not be the pickguard, the pot may be touching the bottom of the cavity once it's installed in the pickguard, or perhaps touching the sides as well.

Does the series/parallel wiring check out OK when tested out of the guitar?

[dannyhill]

Hi Newey,

No that is exactly it.
With the pick guard out of the guitar but the volume pot bolted onto it the neck cuts out in all positions and pull/pushes.
With volume pot not bolted on then the neck works in all positions except in parallel (both in phase and out of phase).

Is it something to do with ground loops?
I have the neck pickup base grounded via a wire to the copper in the pup cavity, then a wire takes that to the copper in the control cavity.

In case I forgot to mention, the pickguard houses the control section and both pups, its not the typical two piece plastic over pups and metal over control panel.

So, is the problem occuring as there is a neck connection that goes to earth when I bolt the vol pot to the pickguard as it finds a path to earth across the pickguard?

Multimeter out....

[dannyhill]

Problem solved with the neck cutting out.
On the bottom lug of the three of the vol pot I have three hot wires going there. Not being well soldered they move when their wires flex, like being pushed up against the plate.

Maybe one of these is to do with the paralllel position problem?

D

[dannyhill]

Oh, no.


Back again. It just seems there is too much wiring in there that as soon as you start to bolt things on, twist and turn and place the plate back under the strings and on the guitar wires move.
Maybe I've missed something here, but how does one solder 3 wires onto one lug without it being unstable?
I've spent three days on this and I'm really fed up.

So still two problems - Parallel doesnt work and neck cuts out when I bolt on the pots due to bad solder joint/loose wire.

Might they be related?

As ever, any help is well appreciated.....

[newey]

Still sounds like 2 separate issues to me. It is possible that they are related.

It is devilishly difficult to troubleshoot things over the web. See it, and we'd probably spot the problem fairly quickly, but over the web it can take lots of back and forth.

Ground loops may cause noise (maybe) but would not cause a lack of output. If the neck pickup works, then doesn't when you put the pots in the pickguard, it suggests that the hot output is getting shorted to ground somehow when you do that.

Maybe I've missed something here, but how does one solder 3 wires onto one lug without it being unstable?

In that situation, if it's become a problem, I would solder 2 together, then run a "Y" to the pot along with the other wire, so that you only have 2 wires meeting at that point. Not the best solution as it means an extra joint, but if you've tried to get all three on there good without success, time for Plan B.

You'll also need to wrap the joint with electrical tape to prevent a short.

I don't know how thick the wire you're using is, the smaller the gauge the easier it is to make multiple connections to a single lug.

[dannyhill]

Just been out to clear my head a bit.
Well the wire I'm using is thicker than that I normally use and so stiffer. That doesn't help, when I get a chance I will replace it.

Still, for me the main issue to find why the pups dont work in parallel.

[JohnH]

I just had a scan through this thread. A small suggestion, after taking a breath, would be to draw out a diagram of exactly how it is wired now. Neweys diagram was based on a standard tele switch and you are translating that to the lugs of your 8-in-line version. If you draw and post a similar diagram based on your parts, looking carefully at how it is all wired in the guitar, it may help identify a problem

Also, another photo would showing an overall view of the wiring (but not more than 1000 pixels wide please!)

John

[dannyhill]

Ok, an update. The bridge pickup is quite a bit less noisy than the neck pup. It also more responsive to grounding against shielding.

[dannyhill]

Hi John H and Newey,

I soldered the ground with the cap onto the back of the tone pot, at least now that pot is always grounded, which helps with noise issue.

Just going eat, I enclose the photos, will draw the diagram later but it is the same as how Newey's diagram is except pups are swapped around.

I will draw it as is with the neck pup not touching the foil on the guard is the guard is removed.
Here are the pics:























1st image is front of vol pot
2nd is front of tone pot
3rd is of neck cavity with neck pup screwed in with ground wire from pup to cavity plus a ground wire from cavity to control cavity.
4th is of control cavity showing bridge wire soldered to wire from neck cavity both to control cavity copper.
5th is of side view of vol switch, bottom side as seen in Newey's diagram
6th is of side view of vol switch, top side as seenin Newey's diagram
7th is of side view of tone switch, bottom side as seen in Newey's diagram
8th is of side view of tone switch, top side as seen in Newey's diagram
9th is of top view of switch
10th is a view of the back of the scratch plate.
11th is side view of switch


Cheers,

Daniel



(EDITed by sumgai to remove the extraneous clickage.)

[dannyhill]

OK, ok, so image shack changed the order on me. Should read this:

1st image is front of vol pot
2nd is front of tone pot
3rd is of neck cavity with neck pup screwed in with ground wire from pup to cavity plus a ground wire from cavity to control cavity.
4th is of control cavity showing bridge wire soldered to wire from neck cavity both to control cavity copper.
5th is a view of the back of the scratch plate.
6th is of top view of switch
7th is of side view of tone switch, bottom side as seen in Newey's diagram
8th is of side view of vol switch, top side as seen in Newey's diagram
9th is of side view of vol switch, bottom side as seen in Newey's diagram
10th is of side view of tone switch, top side as seen in Newey's diagram
11th is side view of switch

Thanks,

Danny

[dannyhill]

Here's the circuit diagram:




Good luck!

D



(EDITed by sumgai to make the image viewable without making one subject to accustions of 'mousal abuse'. )

[dannyhill]

Last post before bed (cue trumpeter!)
Now I have the tone pot connected the grounded volume pot, when either pot contacts the al foil of the pickguard, the neck pup cuts out in the neck position (and probably all others).
So it seems that a neck hot gets grounded when either of the pots tocuh the grounded plate.

Remember, -ve wire of the bridge pup is a braid which contacts across the al foil.

Confused? I'm going to bed.
Thanks in advance,

Danny

[sumgai]

Danny,

Your schematic looks good, it should work as you desire.

Since it doesn't work like that, do this:

Set your multimeter to Ohms (either AutoRange, or to the highest range);

Place the black lead on ground;

Place the red lead on the Phase switch middle terminal where the Neck Red (+) wire is connected.

Now look at the meter. When all of the parts are out of contact with the pickguard, there should be a reading well above 0Ω. When you make contact between any pot and the pickguard's underside (the shielding), does the meter drop down to read 0Ω.... or is it still way up in the several KΩ range?

If it goes to 0Ω upon contact, then you have a physical problem, not an incorrectly placed wire. (Err, provided that you did follow your own diagram correctly. ) Look for a solder bridge (too big a blob of solder making contact where it shouldn't (across two or more conductive points)), or perhaps a partially exposed break in the insulation of one of the wires... althought I'd rate that much less likely.

Finally, you could have a broken wire that has gone intermittent - the insulation looks good, but the copper conductors inside work sometimes, and cut out at other times. With your wire (which is nearly the size of House wiring - Yikes! -) that's entirely possible. I do recommend that you start over with much smaller diameter (gauge) wire. Something along the lines of 22 or 24 ga. would be much easier to deal with, and is not all that expensive, comparatively speaking. That will go along ways towards good solder joints (and let you put more than two wires on one terminal), as well as making troubleshooting less of a headache.

HTH




~!~!~!~

BTW, I've taken the liberty of making your images directly viewable - that makes for a lot less clicking around to see what you're trying to show us.

In the future, may I suggest that you do not use the shortcut provided by ImageShack, but instead place the link directly into our Forum's textarea, then surround that with this Forum's own [IMG] and [/IMG] tags (as found in the second row of icons, fourth one from the left).

Again, HTH!



sumgai

[4real]

+1 on the image resize...use paint before uploading to reduce everything to about 30% before uploading to the net.

...

it could be as simple as things shorting on the ground. If you have a bare braid (which should always be ground anyway independent of the pup +/- wires) or your oversized wires and soldering joins are contacting, cover the foil or wires or even a switch terminals with tape to stop any contact in tricky points.

A layer of tape over the foil does nothing to harm the effectiveness of shielding and guitars against things potentially grounding now or in the future when the instrument is jostled about over the years. I tend to do this wherever I see this might occur, especially in a tight tele like cavity or similar.

Often it is worth the effort, though generally it saves time in the long run, to get the best wire for the job and practice soldering before starting such a project. Have a plan (preferably verified or checked over here) and systematically go through things...if possible, wire everything to a cardboard template of the controls so it can be tested as working before putting the whole assembly into the guitar and shortening pickup leads as required.

There are often multiple errors and mishaps along the way, I seem to always get volume knobs turning the wrong way and such, and it is a lot harder to fix installed into most tight cavities. Some good flexible 'hook up wire' can generally be got in a pack of a dozen colours for a few dollars and worth having around...otherwise, old cables such as for computers will often have multi strands of suitable wire to salvage. I used such a cable with 4 core plus shield recently to rewire an HB to 4 conductor for instance.

It's even permissible to completely start again or to wire thins as a simple scheme and add the 'modules' of phase switches and such one things are working in a basic form.

As always, the multimeter is your friend...best of luck though!