Just did it! Works & some questions

[Deleted]

hello from Greece!,
i was planning to do the mod for about a week or so, had gone through the whole text several times (quieting the beast), and i ordered the following :
a) 30ml of copper paint
cgi.ebay.co.uk/GUITAR-CONDUCTIVE-SHIELD-SHIELDING-PAINT-COPPER-/200561382333?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2eb263d3bd
b) 0.33uf 630V metal film capacitor (ac voltage in Greece is 220-230 V)
cgi.ebay.co.uk/SCR-MKP-PPE-0-33uF-5-630V-Capacitor-/270640335166?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item3f036bc93e
c) aluminium pickguard shield
cgi.ebay.co.uk/ALUMINIUM-STRATOCASTER-PICKGUARD-SHIELD-STRAT-UNIVERSAL-/200564661369?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2eb295dc79

Thing is, i order the 1st 2 items from the same supplier last wednesday, and to my surprise the shield arived in friday! (but not the rest of the items)
Not being able to resist , i went out and bought some cheap 0.33uf 400v capacitor (about 0.2 euros~0.25 USD) and tried the mod, trying to use cooking aluminium foil for the cavities.

The experience was rather haunting!! I started about 20:00AM in friday stopped at about 02:00 saturday morning without much success... (after testing, photo shooting, drilling.... the kids/wife were sleeping and i was in the kitchen sweating like a mad man )

After i realized (later in the morning at 08:00PM) that the aluminium foil was a bad idea, i went out and bought some cheap aluminium tape (the one used for duct work/hydraulics, without conductive adhesive) and redid the cavities. I put everything back in place, and the thing worked!!
I was able to experience big difference in hum between my shielded strat and one old aria (strat clone) without shielding.

However, for the whole 2 days i was thinking that this is the first proof of concept, and that i should redo my guitar after the "real" supplies arrive (copper paint + expensive 0.33uf capacitor). In the meantime this was in the back of my head, mainly because the aluminium tape work was done very hasty without any care to make for good conductivity.

All this, till i had the idea to actually measure the resistance from the pickguard shield to the tremolo terminal (the two terminals in the ground "line", which starts from the pickguard and ends in the tremolo springs).
Well, the resistance was *small*. 1-2 ohms. *only* which means that the cheap aluminium tape poor work achieved its goal!

Now the question is (regarding the negative comments i read about conductive copper paints), should i perform it or just leave it as is? (meaning that i lost those 15 euros (20 USD) spent on the paint).

What is your take on this?

thx a lot!!

[jcgss77]

pyrros,

Welcome to GN2!! and, congratulations on the successful mod!!

To answer your question, personally, since the Strat is done, and you have noticed a difference, you should leave it. Don't fix what isn't broke, right?

I would reserve the other guitar (Aria?) for the components arriving in the future, and quiet that one too.

Now, it is time for some wiring schemes...

[Yew]

I would say leave it, that tape is as least as good as any paint... and the cap is just extra electrocition protection, so getting a high quality audio one wont make much different

[newey]

pyrros-

Hello and Welcome!

I agree with jcgss and yew.

Don't fix what isn't broke

Exactly. 2 other sayings that apply to this situation:

"Don't mess with success!"

And:

"The Perfect is the enemy of The Good".

You could save the paint for the Aris as suggested, or if the supplier has a liberal return policy, perhaps return the goods and get a refund.

No shielding job is perfect, so if you're hearing a significant reduction in noise, that's probably as good as it's going to get.

[Deleted]

Thank you all for your replies!

The strange thing, is that regarding the aluminium tape work, i did nothing to force the thing to be conductive. I even overlaped with no folding done. That is strange! But then again, the aluminium tape is so slim and the adhesive layer is too thin as well, that i think the slightest angle could force the metal to be exposed.

So, what i think i will do is just re-measure the resistance at various places inside the pups/controls cavities and leave it as is.

Now about saving the copper paint/capacitor for the Aria strat copy, this has already installed fast track 2, fast track 1 at posistions bridge/neck so it doesn't hum in 99.99% of the occasions played. I just used the middle pup in this occasion only to compare the two guitars (with/without shielding).

I have one concern about another "high end" tone capacitor 0.047uf i ordered, and will start reading a little bit in the capacitors section.

Again thx a lot!

[jcgss77]

pyrros,

I would not be too concerned about "high end" tone caps. some people swear by certain types of this or that, but in the end, the only difference is if you can hear it. And you will read, if you haven't already, about "golden ears". That is people who swear they hear a difference between this cap or that cap, or this wire is better than that wire. You will find that this such marketing technique is false and just sounds good on paper. The best tone cap is one that sounds good to you in your gear. And the only way to really find this is to try out many different caps together. There are various ways to do this, and I am sure that you have found the ways to experiment here on GN2 and on the original website, GN1.

I am sorry if you already knew this, but remember, we are here to answer any questions that you may have. Also, please remember that there are no stupid questions, and you are in good company here.

BTW- I would take a long strip of your aluminum tape, long enough to go from one end of the pickup cavity to the other, from the point under the neck pup to the bottom corner of the control cavity. Lay it in place, sticky side up, so you have one long strip from end to end of the whole cavity. Then, place electrical tape over it the whole way. This is going to ensure that you have continuity across your shielding. Since you are already having success with your shielding, may not notice a difference, but I feel that over time your aluminum tape may separate, and you might lose continuity.

[Deleted]

Shaun, thanx very much for the reply. Great idea about putting the tape face down.
hmmm maybe i am afraid of the paper going curly over time...
Won't just kitchen-food-type aluminium do the trick? This seems softer to work with. The aluminium tape unattached-ungluedfeels a little "wild".
But if you have done this with the tape face down and the paper face up, then i'll follow this path.

[ashcatlt]

I use (heavy duty) kitchen foil and spray adhesive all the time. Cheap, easy, and works just fine.

[jcgss77]

Aha-I wasn't completely clear with my steps. Depending on how wide your aluminum tape is, you would probably need to fold it in half to get it to sit nicely under the electrical tape.

As Ash said, heavy duty aluminum foil is your weapon of choice here. Just make it narrow enough to be comfortable under the electrical tape to ensure continuity.

The paint will not have this problem, if you decide to keep it, for your other guitar. Most people contend that copper tape is the most effective here, but I think that as long as you have a complete, continuous shield, the only factor which may have any further effect will be thickness-if I am wrong, someone please correct me. You just want as little resistance as possible along your shield.

Now, when you have this done, you might want to take a look at some posts by a former member named woody, about shielding your pups. Some really good stuff there. The link is HERE.







(EDITed to fix the link.)

[Deleted]

Shaun thx.
The link about shielding the pups is not working. To be honest i tried to remove the pickup cover, but it was so hard, i was so akawrd and insecure about it, i thought i would ruin the pickup in seconds by cutting some of its pins. In short, the cover was *so* hard to be removed (in contrast to the pups of other strat-type guitar i have, and the dimarzio fast track i,ii, they all open up very easy, but these new ones are a pain....)I would definitely like to try the mod if i found a way to remove the cover.

[Deleted]

Guys, most probably this weekend i am going to open up the guitar once again, for the installation of caps, a dimarzio pickup and some measurements regarding the aluminum tape shielding.
One question : should i bother shielding the jack and tremolo cavities?

[ashcatlt]

There's usually nothing in the trem cavity to shield. The jack cavity is tight and tough to shield, and it's very easy to end up with a situation where inserting the cable causes the tip of the jack to touch the grounded shield and short the whole guitar to silence. There's very little in there which can pick up noise, especially if you've used shielded cable to get there from the controls. I think most don't bother.

I wanted to mention, too, that the trem claw is not the final ground destination in the circuit. That would be the house ground by way of the amps chassis. It gets there through the sleeve of the jack.

Low resistance between shield and trem is nice, but really meaningless. What you're looking for is low resistance between both of these and the jack sleeve. That will tend to get you low resistance between trem and shield, but only "accidentally".

[Deleted]

Ash thanx.
I just measured the resistance between the jack casing and the pickguard aluminum shield and its infinite:
One question, between the chassis (the pickguard + cavities shield complex) and the star ring (where the negatives from the pups + the ground from the jack + the ground from the tone capacitor are connected) there exists the famous 0.33uf 400V cap which is there to provide electrical shock protection right? So no direct current can pass from one end of the capacitor to the other if there is no short in the circuit right?

This idea is manifested in this schematic:



If all necessary insulation is done, (as is advised by the guitarnuts2.proboards.com/page/gn1-pages) then
there is no way that there is some conductivity between the chassis and the external ground (which was the idea of the large capacitor right?)

Hmmm, just a silly question.... if what i said is true, then does the 0.33uF capacitor destroys the idea of shielding?

many thanx for any thoughts!

[ashcatlt]

The cap blocks DC and attenuates low frequencies. It makes it impossible to check continuity from shield to jack without some messing around. It also defeats shielding action for those low freqs which are not passed. Luckily, most of the noise we want to shield out is higher than the cap's cutoff.

[Deleted]

alright, thanx, it seems i am not the right path. smth is telling me that by short-circuiting the two terminals of the 0.33uF cap 400V, i am going to get smth like 1KOhm resistance from the pickguard aluminum shield to the jack sleeve, but i will do later tonight.

smth else, here in Greece we have 220V AC. Just logged on to my home's server and checked out the exact AC figures (i am running apcupsd on a APC Back-UPS BR 800 :
Line Voltage : 225-228 Volts
Line Freq : 50.0 Hz

So i ordered a 0.33 uF 630V capacitor instead of the 400v as advised by the GN1 site.
Should i have any special considerations regarding shielding, given the specific AC characteristics?
After the mod, I have a substantial improvement in hum and hiss reduction, but it still is not zero, but then the single coils of this guitar a little weaker (and "thinner") than the unshielded one.

[newey]

Should i have any special considerations regarding shielding, given the specific AC characteristics?

No, it should work roughly the same.

[ashcatlt]

Didn't you change pickups while you were shielding, or did I misunderstand? Have you tried the pickup height thing?

Did you inadvertently wire it so that the pickup signal is passing through the cap on its way to the jack sleeve? It sounds like you followed the QTB instructions very carefully, but it's worth a second check. My models seemed to show that this cap (wired in series with the pickups) shouldnt cause any loss of audible bass, but I've never actually tried it, so I suppose it's at least possible that this could be causing some of your thin-ness. Like I say, worth at least checking.

[Deleted]

Thanx Ashcatlt, Newey.

Ashcatlt, the installation of the pickup was done yesterday.

Yesterday i was supposed to do the following tasks:
1) check, measure, enhance conductivity of the cavities shielding
2) install the new super capacitors (tone + electroshock protection)
3) install Dimarzio hs-3 at the neck position
4) try and make a no-load pot for the neck position

after a long long night, yesterday, being unsuccesful and unlucky in many occasions, made me finally, wake up this morning, and cancel the whole star-ground idea and the installation of the new capacitors. I put everything in place according to the initial wiring, (including the initial stock capacitor) installed the dimarzio, (unfortunately this was also a big pain, due to the pickup sockets not having enough clearance, and 2nd due to the fact that the threads in one of the holes were destroyed and would not get lifted up. A nasty situation) and tried to set up the guitar like that.

About the result, i didn't notice any difference in hum canceling (taking into account the 2 original single coils, since hs-3 is a vertical humbucker), so i suppose hum-wise it does not make much of a difference, while at the same time, consuming a lot of space in the limited control space under the pickguard.

The interesting part, is that at some point i tried installing a no-load 500kohm at the neck tone position, and the whole guitar went crazy. Something was fatally wrong with this! Wierd tones and volume not working! After i installed the original 250 (260 measured) kohm pot, after modifying it, as well to act as no load, (i measured all resistances and it was from 0 up to 260 -> and +infinity in the last (10) position - btw i used my wife's nail lacquer to insulate the area around 10).
Now with the no-load pot, and the resistance guaranteed *large* at 10, after the "click" from 8-8.5->9, i didn't notice a considerable change in tone. How did i know? i tried some artificial harmonics at 14th fret, 3rd string, and i didnt get anything spectacular from 8 to 10. This means that 250 Kohm are indeed enough for the strat.

Today, after installing new strings (again..... grrrrr) i finally set up the instrument. The hs-3 needs strong hands, since it is a weak but very nice otherwise pickup, with a nice clean versatile sound. I tried some yngwie neo-classical style, and it seems in this field hs-3 feels at home.

Moral of the story. Shortest path to modifying the sound are the pickups. All else are doomed to be less significant parameters in the shadow of other most important parameters (frequently related with the amp, pedals, etc...)

[4real]

Hmmm...sorry to here you you had so many problems there...these things re easy to get a bit wrong...one bad connection or bad wire, or a fault in the scheme and things can go wrong. Unless very complex, I generally try and add one "module" at a time. Like adding in a new pickup, or a phase switch or whatever...

...

On the noiseless stacked pups...these are true humbuckers. I have a pair of Hot Noiseless Fender stacks (as per the JB sig strat) and a SD JB Humbucker in the bridge. I can play it here within 2 feet of a 22" CRT computer monitor and still get zero noise. However if I split the HB, giving me a true single coil...it will produce that characteristic interference buzz.

With 4 wires on a stack, it would be extremely easy to get the series connection wrong (wiring the two coils together) and ending up being in parallel ( weaker cleaner sound, though still humbucking) or splitting it so you only get the top coil...or worse still, the lower coil and all the usual noise associated with a true SC.

I think you ask similar questions of the other thread and will head over there in a minute...

...

Things like the no-load pots are kind of adventurous to make yourself. Many mods are pretty subtle, some are almost impossible to tell if you don't play through an amp and clean sound.

Not sure about no load tone pots, but I use a 1Meg volume and no tone on my tele (so absolutely no load on the tone) and the sound is incredibly bright and cutting...a little too much in fact...very much as if the pups were wired directly to the jack sockets.

Many pickups are designed to sound best with a particular load, the 250K pots in a strat were to take off that super high end of the single coils for instance.

...

There is a lot that 'trick wiring' can achieve. I'm not able to do any recording at the moment (hoping to address this soon) but the difference between series and parallel can be quite dramatic, add in phase switching and you are in Brian May territory...quite dramatic differences in "tone".

Amps and effects make a huge difference and can pretty much cancel out a lot of what you might achieve with wiring mods...especially with digital modelling things where often all the guitars sound similar unless you really tweak out all the compression and such they layer into the sound. This is why things like Tube amps are so coveted, they are equally a part of the "instrument" and the player can "play' the amp as much as the guitar itself.

Don't quite get the "strong hands" thing...I suspect there may still be some wiring problems, especially if you are getting noise with the bridge Pup alone...this really should not happen unless the noise is elsewhere in your system (noisy amp or effects)...

As you can hear from some of those clips I posted on the YJM thread, they should be capable of some lovely warm blues tones.

My pickups are possibly a little "hotter" or voiced to be a bit more 'creamier'...they are though still very strat like and SC in sound. I suspect that the fender/lawrence design, like the kinmans, are a bit more 'advanced', certainly more than the old DM stacks they used to make.

I'll post some pics if I can find them to explain the way my pups are constructed...

I'd suggest having another look at the bridge pickups wiring, check that you are getting both coils, because the Pup should be very quiet as far as noise goes...if not silent!

[Deleted]

4real thanx, in my current setup i have single coils in bridge/middle (no-name, brand-less!!, kind of hot, they measure about 8komh, but are too thin sounding that they produce a weak sound - but great for dire straits (in position 2 bridge-middle) , old deep purple, that kind of stuff).
I am sure i have done the wiring on the dimarzio hs-3 correctly, i have connected the 2 coils in series, just as per the instructions on the dimarzio web site : www.dimarzio.com/media/diagrams/4Conductor.pdf
and indeed i get no hum from the pickup.
Now position 4, as you correctly guessed has started to hum, but its a non-issue i never played that combination.

Now, about what i mean with strong hands, i mean the strength of the left hand, the ability to produce sound even if the pups are weak.

Nevertheless, overall, although i bought the dimarzio 40 euros, i guess that was the highest amount i should pay for that sound.
Also the amp plays a HUGE role. What hums with one amp, does not hum with the other.

All my guitars with my crate gl40 dirty channel (distortion) hum or moan or scream, etc!!!
However using the boss me-25 multieffects all sound great and with minimal hum!!

So, while the aluminium shielding improved lets say 30% the situation, the me-25 (which i am sure cancels hum or just do not cause any of it due to its electrical characteristics) improves it 90%!

So i think the whole shielding efforts are good only if :
a) someone plays single coils, and
b) on a old amplifier

I have seen those line-6 digital amplifiers. Those little monsters are just computers disguised behind the mask of an amplifier!
I could not believe my ears when i set the line-6 to the "trooper/Iron Maiden" "mode" and the thing would play the 2nd guitar from the intro!!! AMAZING!!!

Same thing with me-25 but it is a little bit more ... "generic" lol!