Pickups Randomly cut out?!

[renard]

Hi. I have a HH LP type guitar. This issue arose when the guitar had the stock 3 way toggle. Since having this issue I have replaced the guitar with a variety of on/off buttons, a rotary switch as well as several industrial 2 way toggle switches. The guitar at times will randomly have a pickup cut out to a faint output. The pickup usually returns to full volume upon fiddling with whatever switching system is installed.

What could cause this issue? It has happened to both pickups. One seems to always work when this senario arises. I have swaped between the different 4 pots that came stock as I am wired up MV MT. I have also replaced output jacks and the wiring overall every time I tinker (Which is usually inspired when this issue occurs). 

Seems like a mystery. I read that pickups do not behave this way. Once they die they are usually dead.

I cant find info online about this sort of issue. Any ideas? 

I know I need to buy a volt meter but I do not have one at this time. 

[reTrEaD]

May 27, 2017 8:27:26 GMT -5 renard said:

I know I need to buy a volt meter but I do not have one at this time. 

If you live in the US, that's an easily solved problem. There are over 700 Harbor Freight stores and you can get a free multimeter with any purchase. They rotate which items you get free, and the coupons for a free meter come up on a fairly regular basis. But if you're outside the continental US, idk.

[newey]

You are right about the pickup end of things- usually it's all or nothing. And the fact that it happens with both pickups pretty well rules out a wonky pickup.

Diagnosing wiring faults over the internet is difficult. Diagnosing an intermittent fault is even tougher. Our help is likely to be limited.

But for starters, we will need you to post a diagram of your wiring, and probably some close-up photos of the wiring, maybe we can spot something.

If you can ascertain that this only happens in certain switch positions, that would be a big clue on where to look.

[blademaster2]

Newey is right about the difficulties of finding intermittent problems and that it is very unlikely that a pickup is itself intermittent. Since it is intermittent, I doubt that a meter will be able to tell you what you cannot already hear.

The first things I would try are the following:

1) In the cavities, look closely at the solder connections and the wiring in general for good 'wetting' of the solder forming a smooth fillet, preferably with a magnifying glass, and if you can do this try gently jiggling on wires while a string is vibrating to see if a poor connection exists.
2) Also while looking at the wiring, see if there is anything like a bare ground wire that could contact a signal wire, or a signal wire that is very close to and could come into contact with something grounded like the body of a potentiometer. Bend the wires away or add electrical tape to insulate that location if you see anything suspicious
3) Spray some contact cleaner (not WD-40) into all pots and switches (if they are open-bodied and contacts can receive this spray) and operate the switches and move the pot controls back and forth while doing this on each one.

Those steps should cover most of the typical sources of trouble like you have described.

[newey]

Good advice from Blademaster. Definitely do those items.

Probably a stupid question on my part, but have you tried the guitar through a different amp, with a different cable?

[christopher]

I had this problem on both my Les Pauls, and I solved it by flicking the switch really fast for about a minute. One of my guitar buddies said that the issue was probably that I was leaving it one position for too long at a time.