Neck pickup getting no sound, but it registers as working

[wowired]

    Hey everybody, this is my first post so thank you ahead of time for any help.  So after playing guitar for decades I decided to buy one of those diy kits and build my own.  Everything has been going smoothly until I finished

the wiring. I did put in some CTS full size pots and got set of humbucker pickups with the single wire shielded design. I'm attaching couple images which I hope upload - one of the wiring diagram and other of the pots and switch.  It is kind of crammed in the pocket compared to other guitars.  The bridge pickup works fine. There is a 3 way toggle switch, in Bridge I get the Bridge pickup working fine, in middle, I get bridge pickup - but no neck although the neck must have the volume turned up or no sound comes out of it.  On the neck switch I get nothing.  However, not sure if this means anything...I can plug the guitar into my tuner and can tune in any mode: neck, middle, and bridge.  Maybe I'm ignorant of this all these years, but thought that you need the pickup to be working for it to register in the tuner?  I'm new to wiring and not the most experienced solderer, but did check out a lot of tutorials and the like.  I did troubleshoot a lot and have a multimeter so will break that down to help everyone understand what I have already done.  I didn't jump here first.  So:

1) Grounding.  Everything is grounded.  I used multimeter and put ground on jack ground and went through each pot, bridge, strings...got a clean signal from each. 

2) Switch.  I though at first maybe switch was bad and I had an extra so I did change that out, but situation is the same.  I checked and the ground is fine with it, plus checked from hot lead to jack and checked the

bridge and neck tab on it and got a signal.  (sorry if my names of parts aren't correct).

3) Pickups:  Used multimeter and connected to ground and live inner wire (it's those shielded wires where you solder the outer to pot for grounding)  Both pickups were reading right around 8.5 k which is in the range for them.

       When plugged into amp, I did the screwdriver tap test. The bridge pickup I get the "pop" sound when tap it with a screwdriver.  The neck however, I get nothing.  But I got a reading from the neck pickup.

4) I understand the shielded cables on the pickups like this can cause shorts if touching things like the caps or other metal spots and have kept them clear of those while testing everything and plugged into my amp. 

5) I though maybe my soldering on neck volume and tone pots may have been bad or a wire, so I went and removed the wires, cleaned everything up, snipped the pickup wire back and did fresh soldering, but still same thing.

6) Checked between all the little tabs on pots and no solder or random wires are touching or crossing over. I went through and made sure no junk was lying around just to be safe.  Not that there was before, but check all the little things.

I'm honestly at a loss and figure next would be go to a local tech/luthier and have them try and figure it out.  The pots were new and read fine as well.  I don't know if possible I had 2 bad switches or if something is just shorting out.

I just find it weird the bridge setup which is same as the neck, works fine.  Not getting any hum or that in amp like grounding issue (in past I have had that with other guitars so know what sounds like lol)  So here I am signed up and posting on

here hoping someone may have an idea.  I'm big into problem solving and know bringing it to a pro would be next step, but if something simple like changing out a switch or that.....  I've seen other post about neck pickups, but they weren't exactly

like this.  Most seemed to be bad switches or a ground problem.  Once again thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.  I do appreciate it.  Tried to clarify everything as best as possible.  I hope the images upload.

[wowired]

[newey]

wowired-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Dec 21, 2020 19:10:04 GMT -5 wowired said:

The bridge pickup I get the "pop" sound when tap it with a screwdriver.  The neck however, I get nothing.  But I got a reading from the neck pickup.

Odd indeed. Certainly, 2 consecutive bad switches is a possible explanation, but one with an extremely low probability.

My only guess here- and this is admittedly a real longshot- is that, if you did not have the neck pickup disconnected when you tested it, and if your test was done with the switch in the middle position, you may have been measuring the bridge pickup's resistance instead (since the 2 pickups are connected in parallel through their pots with the 3-way switch in the middle). Thus, my only suggestion is to disconnect both ends of the neck pickup and use your multimeter between the braided shield and the insulated wire. Set your meter to the 20KΩ setting unless it is an auto-ranging meter. If you get an "out of range" or infinite ohms reading, the neck pickup is has a break in the windings. (A more remote possibility is that you get a 0Ω (or very low Ohms) reading, indicating a dead short to the baseplate of the pickup).

Were these new pickups or some that you bought second-hand?

But if you get an approx. 8K reading, then the pickup is fine and I'm out of ideas. Maybe someone else will weigh in.

[wowired]

These are new pickups.  Granted I did order online from Amazon, but they came as a set. 

And actually yesterday when I went and disconnected the neck pickup and cleaned everything up and redid the wiring on the neck caps, While I had the wire free, I went ahead and trimmed it down then and had tested it out by

itself cause I was wondering if the pickup itself could be bad.  I can disconnect the bridge and double check again.

 I'm wondering, is there a chance if part of its own cable/wire is touching under the pickup, would that cause it to short out? 

[newey]

Dec 22, 2020 0:49:56 GMT -5 wowired said:

 I'm wondering, is there a chance if part of its own cable/wire is touching under the pickup, would that cause it to short out?

That was one of the possibilities I posed above, although an unlikely one. But if that were the case, you should read a very low resistance for that pickup. What did it read when you tested it disconnected?

(I wouldn't disconnect the bridge pickup, it's not the problem.)

[wowired]

Dec 22, 2020 7:10:01 GMT -5 newey said:

Dec 22, 2020 0:49:56 GMT -5 wowired said:

 I'm wondering, is there a chance if part of its own cable/wire is touching under the pickup, would that cause it to short out?

That was one of the possibilities I posed above, although an unlikely one. But if that were the case, you should read a very low resistance for that pickup. What did it read when you tested it disconnected?

(I wouldn't disconnect the bridge pickup, it's not the problem.)

So I was working back and forth and was told should check pot values which led me to wandering around seeing how to check the pots while still installed.  Found a thread somewhere and one of responses was to plug guitar cable into guitar, turn the volume up on the pickups (this for checking volume pots) put meter on the hot and ground on the end of guitar cable (respectively) and run the ground reader down length of the end (little over inch or so) and watch to see, with meter set at 200k, what highest reading is.  Which you would use some math to get actually value of pot, but to make long story short.  Put switch in bridge position adn got reading around 137k -147k for top end.  Middle position got a reading little less, but when I switched it to the neck....all I got was OL.  lol  So it is looking like my volume pot is dead to the world.  At least, that's what it seems like to me and I'm hoping is the case because switching out a couple pots isn't that big of a deal, especially at this point. Should I switch out the neck tone pot as well?  I didn't check it, and think it is ok, but maybe would be best just to switch it out anyway?  I think the neck volume pot was first one I did and maybe when soldered I fried it by mistake?  Although, when I do touch my ground point on meter to the neck volume pot, and then to the hot wire for pickup, I get a reading of 8.1k roughly.  Even if the pot is bad, would it make sense I am getting a signal reading for neck pickup?  I guess since it is grounded to the pot it is only reading the pickup? 

[bubbalou88]

Dec 22, 2020 14:18:41 GMT -5 wowired said:

Dec 22, 2020 7:10:01 GMT -5 newey said:

That was one of the possibilities I posed above, although an unlikely one. But if that were the case, you should read a very low resistance for that pickup. What did it read when you tested it disconnected?

(I wouldn't disconnect the bridge pickup, it's not the problem.)

So I was working back and forth and was told should check pot values which led me to wandering around seeing how to check the pots while still installed.  Found a thread somewhere and one of responses was to plug guitar cable into guitar, turn the volume up on the pickups (this for checking volume pots) put meter on the hot and ground on the end of guitar cable (respectively) and run the ground reader down length of the end (little over inch or so) and watch to see, with meter set at 200k, what highest reading is.  Which you would use some math to get actually value of pot, but to make long story short.  Put switch in bridge position adn got reading around 137k -147k for top end.  Middle position got a reading little less, but when I switched it to the neck....all I got was OL.  lol  So it is looking like my volume pot is dead to the world.  At least, that's what it seems like to me and I'm hoping is the case because switching out a couple pots isn't that big of a deal, especially at this point. Should I switch out the neck tone pot as well?  I didn't check it, and think it is ok, but maybe would be best just to switch it out anyway?  I think the neck volume pot was first one I did and maybe when soldered I fried it by mistake?  Although, when I do touch my ground point on meter to the neck volume pot, and then to the hot wire for pickup, I get a reading of 8.1k roughly.  Even if the pot is bad, would it make sense I am getting a signal reading for neck pickup?  I guess since it is grounded to the pot it is only reading the pickup? 

You likely overheated the pot while soldering. Replace it. Use 25_30watt iron. If you have some hemostats use then or very small alligator clips as a heat sink. Clip on the wire terminal close as possible to the pot’s case then solder. Also when soldering to case I use an 80-100 watt iron to melt solder quickly and get off.

[unreg]

wowired, thought I’d mention that ashcatlt never solders to pot cases; rather he uses a washer or o ring touching the pot and solders his shield connections to that instead. That way pots can’t be fried.

Also, it is bad to solder signal grounds to shield grounds, but you surely haven’t done this. You don’t hear any noise.

(I soldered all ground connections to my star ground after he taught me this wisdom; now, my pots’ cases are free of connections too.)

[ashcatlt]

I have to say I don’t love the way that cap jumps up and over the pot. If that V side lead touches the back of that pot or the shield of that wire which looks like it really wants to flop over that way, it will short the neck pickup and when the V pot is all the way up, it’ll short the whole guitar in the middle of neck position. I don’t believe that’s the issue you’re having now, but it is a potential problem. Maybe put shrink tube or at least some tape on that lead just to make sure it doesn’t become a problem in the future. I can’t see the other lead on that cap, but the way it’s in there, I have to think it comes pretty close to the T pot’s case. If that connects, it will act like the T pot is all the way down permanently, which is maybe less of a concern, but still something you might try to protect against.

[wowired]

Dec 23, 2020 11:58:18 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

I have to say I don’t love the way that cap jumps up and over the pot. If that V side lead touches the back of that pot or the shield of that wire which looks like it really wants to flop over that way, it will short the neck pickup and when the V pot is all the way up, it’ll short the whole guitar in the middle of neck position. I don’t believe that’s the issue you’re having now, but it is a potential problem. Maybe put shrink tube or at least some tape on that lead just to make sure it doesn’t become a problem in the future. I can’t see the other lead on that cap, but the way it’s in there, I have to think it comes pretty close to the T pot’s case. If that connects, it will act like the T pot is all the way down permanently, which is maybe less of a concern, but still something you might try to protect against.

I fully agree.  I didn't want to orient the pots that way, but with the space allowed in the body when I had the pots facing each other like they should, the lugs were really close to touching each other.  Can you put some tape or shrink tube on

leg of a cap too or will that mess with the signal?

I did upon a suggestion unscrew the pots from body and pull them out (not unwired) and went through checking the readings with the meter.  I actually started getting a reading from the neck volume.  The neck tone pot, however,

I am not getting any signal on.  I checked the bridge volume and tone pots, since they work fine, and both were giving signals.  Would a dead tone pot cause the volume to short out like that on the neck? 

[ashcatlt]

You can't read a tone pot "through the nostril" as we say. If your probes are across the jack, and you try to measure the resistance of the pot...well, there's a capacitor there, and your meter is trying to drive a DC signal through in order to do some Ohm's Law math to figure out the resistance. Well, the capacitor is (well nigh) infinite resistance to DC signals, so... Measure between the middle lug and at least one other.

Oh and no. A component lead is just a wire. Shrink tube on wires does exactly nothing except stop them from touching other wires. Unless you manage to get it into the solder joint somehow...

[bubbalou88]

you really should clip those wire leads from caps that are sticking out past the pot's wire lugs. Those are just a potential for future issues. 

[wowired]

Dec 23, 2020 15:52:07 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

You can't read a tone pot "through the nostril" as we say. If your probes are across the jack, and you try to measure the resistance of the pot...well, there's a capacitor there, and your meter is trying to drive a DC signal through in order to do some Ohm's Law math to figure out the resistance. Well, the capacitor is (well nigh) infinite resistance to DC signals, so... Measure between the middle lug and at least one other.

Oh and no. A component lead is just a wire. Shrink tube on wires does exactly nothing except stop them from touching other wires. Unless you manage to get it into the solder joint somehow...

Thank you for the info!   I went ahead and checked each of the pots by their lugs as you mentioned.  The neck tone pot is giving no signal at all.  The others, however, and reading good. 

[wowired]

Dec 23, 2020 17:35:09 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

you really should clip those wire leads from caps that are sticking out past the pot's wire lugs. Those are just a potential for future issues. 

Thank you.  I went and grabbed some snips and trimmed them up. 

[bubbalou88]

Dec 23, 2020 17:41:30 GMT -5 wowired said:

Dec 23, 2020 17:35:09 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

you really should clip those wire leads from caps that are sticking out past the pot's wire lugs. Those are just a potential for future issues. 

Thank you.  I went and grabbed some snips and trimmed them up. 

Btw: whatever is your problem is a result of an open connection or pot. If something were shorted to ground you would get no output of even your bridge pickup when you put the selector switch in middle position
Maybe I missed it but did you actually ohm the volume pot at its lugs?

I just re-read your original post "The bridge pickup works fine. There is a 3 way toggle switch, in Bridge I get the Bridge pickup working fine, in middle, I get bridge pickup - but no neck although the neck must have the volume turned up or no sound comes out of it."      
Ohm between the Neck pickup volume pot's middle out outer lug that the neck pickup connects. If high impedance the volume pot is open between those two lugs but working between center and ground. Replace the pot is so

[bubbalou88]

let me know if you checked the above I added after I posted it

Or jumper between the center lug and the outer lug that the neck pickup connects of the neck volume pot. If you now have sound replace the pot

[wowired]

Dec 23, 2020 18:12:29 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

let me know if you checked the above I added after I posted it

Or jumper between the center lug and the outer lug that the neck pickup connects of the neck volume pot. If you now have sound replace the pot

Ok, I put the meter on ohm and checked with center lug and one neck pickup is connected to (on volume pot).  Reading is bouncing around some, but went up to 113 K. 

When you said jumper you mean putting the meter on to check connectivity?  If that is what you meant I did that and got a beep from the meter.

I do know the tone pot is dead for certain.  I did ohm all the pots and that one, the neck tone pot, didn't give a reading for anything. 

[bubbalou88]

Dec 23, 2020 19:17:57 GMT -5 wowired said:

Dec 23, 2020 18:12:29 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

let me know if you checked the above I added after I posted it

Or jumper between the center lug and the outer lug that the neck pickup connects of the neck volume pot. If you now have sound replace the pot

Ok, I put the meter on ohm and checked with center lug and one neck pickup is connected to (on volume pot).  Reading is bouncing around some, but went up to 113 K. 

When you said jumper you mean putting the meter on to check connectivity?  If that is what you meant I did that and got a beep from the meter.

I do know the tone pot is dead for certain.  I did ohm all the pots and that one, the neck tone pot, didn't give a reading for anything. 

No I meant use a wire etc and contact both terminals and see if you get sound out

[bubbalou88]

Dec 22, 2020 14:34:29 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

Dec 22, 2020 14:18:41 GMT -5 wowired said:

So I was working back and forth and was told should check pot values which led me to wandering around seeing how to check the pots while still installed.  Found a thread somewhere and one of responses was to plug guitar cable into guitar, turn the volume up on the pickups (this for checking volume pots) put meter on the hot and ground on the end of guitar cable (respectively) and run the ground reader down length of the end (little over inch or so) and watch to see, with meter set at 200k, what highest reading is.  Which you would use some math to get actually value of pot, but to make long story short.  Put switch in bridge position adn got reading around 137k -147k for top end.  Middle position got a reading little less, but when I switched it to the neck....all I got was OL.  lol  So it is looking like my volume pot is dead to the world.  At least, that's what it seems like to me and I'm hoping is the case because switching out a couple pots isn't that big of a deal, especially at this point. Should I switch out the neck tone pot as well?  I didn't check it, and think it is ok, but maybe would be best just to switch it out anyway?  I think the neck volume pot was first one I did and maybe when soldered I fried it by mistake?  Although, when I do touch my ground point on meter to the neck volume pot, and then to the hot wire for pickup, I get a reading of 8.1k roughly.  Even if the pot is bad, would it make sense I am getting a signal reading for neck pickup?  I guess since it is grounded to the pot it is only reading the pickup? 

You likely overheated the pot while soldering. Replace it. Use 25_30watt iron. If you have some hemostats use then or very small alligator clips as a heat sink. Clip on the wire terminal close as possible to the pot’s case then solder. Also when soldering to case I use an 80-100 watt iron to melt solder quickly and get off.

[bubbalou88]

wowired, something doesn't make sense to me. When you plugged a guitar cable into the output jack of the guitar with the volume pots at 10 you should have read close to the 8k of the pickup and as you turn the bridge volume down the resistance should decrease to near zero (with the pickup selector switch in bridge position). The neck should do the same with the neck switch in neck position. If you are reading 137k you are not reading the neck pickup in the circuit. If the pickup is disconnected from the volume pots on bridge and neck you would read 500K if you are using 500k pots and 250k if reading that type pot. With Pickup in parallel with the volume pot you will never read more than the lowest value which is the resistance of the pickup.

If you have the pickup selector in middle position you would read around 1/2 or 4K as both pickups would be in parallel with one another.

 

[reTrEaD]

Dec 23, 2020 14:39:15 GMT -5 wowired said:

I didn't want to orient the pots that way, but with the space allowed in the body when I had the pots facing each other like they should, the lugs were really close to touching each other.  Can you put some tape or shrink tube on

leg of a cap too or will that mess with the signal?

Hi wowired

You can use an insulating covering for leads on caps or other components if you like, without any problems. You can use heatshrink tube, "spaghetti", or insulation stripped from wire that has a large enough inner diameter that it can easily slip over the component lead.

But in my opinion, there's a much better strategy that's less prone to lead breakage.

Connect the cap from either the wiper or CCW lug (doesn't matter which) of the tone pot to the case of the tone pot. Connect a stranded, insulated wire from the other of those two lugs mentioned, to the CW lug of the volume control. This will be electrically equivalent to what you have now.

[reTrEaD]

Dec 24, 2020 4:06:41 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

wowired, something doesn't make sense to me. When you plugged a guitar cable into the output jack of the guitar with the volume pots at 10 you should have read close to the 8k of the pickup and as you turn the bridge volume down the resistance should decrease to near zero (with the pickup selector switch in bridge position).

Your assessment is not quite correct.

As you begin rotating the pot from the fully CW position, you introduce some resistance in series with the pickup. So the measured resistance from tip to sleeve of the output jack will INCREASE substantially at first, then finally decrease to zero when the pot is rotated fully CCW.

If the volume pot is exactly 500k ohms (they almost never are), the total resistance of pickup and pot will be 508k ohms. When the pot is rotated such that there is 254k from wiper to CCW and 246k from wiper to CW, the path from wiper to CW plus the 8k for the pickup will also be 254k ohms.

Those two parallel paths give us a total resistance of 127k ohms. That's reasonably close to the maximum resistance wowired reported. Write the difference off to the pot being within rated tolerance but not exactly 500k.

[wowired]

Dec 25, 2020 12:31:31 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

Dec 24, 2020 4:06:41 GMT -5 bubbalou88 said:

wowired, something doesn't make sense to me. When you plugged a guitar cable into the output jack of the guitar with the volume pots at 10 you should have read close to the 8k of the pickup and as you turn the bridge volume down the resistance should decrease to near zero (with the pickup selector switch in bridge position).

Your assessment is not quite correct.

As you begin rotating the pot from the fully CW position, you introduce some resistance in series with the pickup. So the measured resistance from tip to sleeve of the output jack will INCREASE substantially at first, then finally decrease to zero when the pot is rotated fully CCW.

If the volume pot is exactly 500k ohms (they almost never are), the total resistance of pickup and pot will be 508k ohms. When the pot is rotated such that there is 254k from wiper to CCW and 246k from wiper to CW, the path from wiper to CW plus the 8k for the pickup will also be 254k ohms.

Those two parallel paths give us a total resistance of 127k ohms. That's reasonably close to the maximum resistance wowired reported. Write the difference off to the pot being within rated tolerance but not exactly 500k.

Just wanted to say replacement pots arrived in today and I switched them out.  Used my meter to keep checking along way making sure everything working as I go and avoid snags.  Did put some tape around legs on cap and also the switch box.  Did orient pots little different for neck volume and tone (those are two I switched out)  so the cap leg wasn't going "over" the volume pot.  Anyway, to make long story short everything works now.  Bridge and neck are working in each position on the switch.  Both the volume and tone pots are working good. 
Just wanted to say thank you for the help and suggestions from you and everyone else on here.  I really appreciate it. 

[newey]

But did you solve the problem, wowired?

[reTrEaD]

Hey wowired,

As a courtesy to you, I edited your post and move your reply text outside of the quote so it would be more clear who was saying what.

Glad to hear you were successful!