Hello! Help need about humbucker

[raistlin]

Hello everyone! Newbie here..

I've recently put a Seth Lover into the neck of my LP clone. Previously it has an APH-1. However, the APH-1 is too bassy, so I swapped it out for the Lover.

Long story short, soon the signal from the neck pup died. Since it was new, I figured it was a botched DIY wiring job. So I sent it to a tech for a full rewire, and he claimed the problem is with the pup itself. Sometimes when I'm lucky, a few knocks on the pup will bring back the signal.

What I didn't notice, however, that in trying to cop the APH-1 sweet treble, I screwed down the polepieces at the E and B to almost the lowest point. After adjusting the height of the E and B polepieces to more a respectable height, the signal is back. Then it shorts out again.

A few week later, I've finally removed the cover off my Seth. Just a quick breakdown of what I can see:

Screw bobbin: one black wire leading off to the baseplate, two black wires which leads were taped with black masking tape. The wrapping was quite fragile, and I suspect that this was the cause of my problem. I've relocated these wires to a less cramped space, and rewrapped the masking tape, making it tighter against the leads.

There's a stray strand of AWG42 coming from the screw coil though. Is it normal?

Anyway, I got the pickup sounding again, until this morning, where it died on me again. Adjusting the high E pole piece cured it though. The pole piece did not come into contact with any wires, why does it affect the output? The signal now lasts a good deal longer than before it was covered though.

Any thoughts? I would appreciate it. Thank you.

[newey]

raistlin-

Hello and Welcome to GNutz2!

I don't have a good answer for your problem, however. Given that your tech checked the connections and felt that the problem was the pickup, let's take him at his word.

Since it's intermittently working, there's a bad connection somewhere or an intermittent short in the coil. Adjusting the screw should make no difference, it's probably just the act of turning it making whatever connection is bad intermittently go in/out.

EDIT: Re-read your post and saw that this is a new pickup. Are you still within the warranty period?

You've redone the series connection between the 2 coils (the taped-together wires), so that's probably not the problem. But you indicated only that you retaped it. Were the 2 wires soldered together well?

There's a stray strand of AWG42 coming from the screw coil though. Is it normal?

Nope- and that would seem to indicate a coil issue rather than just a connection issue.

I'll let others chime in here, but the bottom line is, there's 4 wires coming off the pickup. If all 4 are properly connected to the coil and it still doesn't work, then the coil is the culprit, which means rewinding it- probably not something you want to do. I'd double- check that baseplate connection, the series connection, and the hot output connection (which your post doesn't mention). Hopefully one of the 4 is bad . . .

Actually, I shouldn't say "the coil"- one of the 2 coils is probably OK, but since the HB is wired in series, a fault in one shuts it all down.

Do you know whether the tech checked those connections? Ask him if he ascertained whether the coil was bad vs. one of the connections to the coil.

[raistlin]

Oct 14, 2010 23:25:36 GMT -5 newey said:

raistlin-

Hello and Welcome to GNutz2!

I don't have a good answer for your problem, however. Given that your tech checked the connections and felt that the problem was the pickup, let's take him at his word.

Since it's intermittently working, there's a bad connection somewhere or an intermittent short in the coil. Adjusting the screw should make no difference, it's probably just the act of turning it making whatever connection is bad intermittently go in/out.

EDIT: Re-read your post and saw that this is a new pickup. Are you still within the warranty period?

You've redone the series connection between the 2 coils (the taped-together wires), so that's probably not the problem. But you indicated only that you retaped it. Were the 2 wires soldered together well?

Nope- and that would seem to indicate a coil issue rather than just a connection issue.

I'll let others chime in here, but the bottom line is, there's 4 wires coming off the pickup. If all 4 are properly connected to the coil and it still doesn't work, then the coil is the culprit, which means rewinding it- probably not something you want to do. I'd double- check that baseplate connection, the series connection, and the hot output connection (which your post doesn't mention). Hopefully one of the 4 is bad . . .

Actually, I shouldn't say "the coil"- one of the 2 coils is probably OK, but since the HB is wired in series, a fault in one shuts it all down.

Do you know whether the tech checked those connections? Ask him if he ascertained whether the coil was bad vs. one of the connections to the coil.

Dear newey,

Thanks for the in-depth reply!

I've checked the ground and hot connections, both are solidly connected, but the series connection wasn't that well soldered. Anyway, I had tucked it around the slug coil (previously it was sitting under the screw coil) so that any adjustments wouldn't affect it so adversely. One of these days I'll resolder it again and rewrap.

As for the stray coil wire, I had suspected as much. The tech was not comfortable taking the pickup apart (I opened the cover myself).
But it seems without the cover the signal lasts a bit longer. Previously when the cover was on, I cannot leave the guitar overnight in a vertical position as the signal would die the next morning. Now I can leave it overnight, and is going strong for three nights now.

It's quite disappointing to receive a bad batch of pickups. I live in Malaysia so claiming the warranty would be expensive as buying a new one.

Thank you.

[raistlin]

I just had a thought... The braided wire was coiled up pretty good in the cavity. As I move the E polepiece, is it possible that the polepiece touches the braided wire, thus grounding out the signal? Because I raised the pickup height higher now, and adjustments on the E polepiece, seems to have a lesser adverse effect. Could it be something this simple?

[newey]

Now I can leave it overnight, and is going strong for three nights now.

Intermittent problems are the worst to sort out. If it was just plain not working, there's a troubleshooting protocol we can use. But when the problem comes and goes, it's tough.

I'm not familiar with your exact pickups, but I've never seen one yet where the pole screws protruded through the bottom of the pickup. So I don't see how turning the adjustment screw could be shorting anything out.

[raistlin]

The polepieces protude through the bottom of the pickup, and since I have a whole length of braided (shielded ground) wire coiled in there..

[newey]

Hmmm-

Those really do stick through, don't they!

I'd try wrapping the braided shield with electrical tape for several inches where the braid lies under/near the pickups. If that is the problem, insulating the braid should cure it.

Again, though, I'm somewhat dubious that the braid is the issue. That loose wire is still worrisome.

[raistlin]

My god, I can't believe I took apart a Seth Lover for THAT! Now I just pull all the remainding single conductor wire into the control cavity. No wonder rising the pickup height and polepiece seemed to cure it temporarily. Thanks a million newey!

[newey]

Well, let us know if that cures it. If so, that's a problem we haven't encountered before around here, at least to my memory.

[gitpiddler]

Newey- the Lovers were as old school PAF as Duncan could get. I had read once that trimming the screws flush with the plate sharpens the high frequencies. My Duncan JB's screws were nearly as long as the legs when I got it ('84).

raistlin- that protruding coil wire worries me since you mentioned it worked better without the cover.

[raistlin]

I'm away at my parents' house for the weekend, I'll report back. Yeah the stray coil wire bugs me, but if it's working normally, I'm gonna pretend I didn't see it.

Previously I had a Alnico 2 Pro in the slot, it had an insulated wire so I can set the pickup and the polepieces very low for that mellow tone. It was too flubby in the bass no matter how I adjusted (I loved the treble however) so I swapped it for the Seth. And that's when all the problems started.

[raistlin]

Hi guys,

Turns out the hot output wire's insulation was stripped, it was grounding out on the baseplate and cover. I wrapped it in tape and all's good now.

Thank you all for your kind advice.