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Post by thedirestrat on Jan 30, 2022 18:10:09 GMT -5
The lettering of the poles, just like which end is "1" versus "3", is arbitrary. You can designate any one of the poles shown on Yogi's diagram to be "A", "B", etc- you just have to wire each one consistently with the diagram. Lettering the poles and numbering the other lugs is just a convenience, it's easier to talk about a particular diagram here if we can refer to "CA" rather than "the pole where the green wire attaches" or some such description. newey told you that the pole designations are arbitrary, and that's correct. You can, literally, say to yourself that "the upper-right pole is A", or you can call it the B pole, or C or D. We (and most of the rest of the electronics world) use designations merely for convenience in communications (which newey already said). Beyond that, poles don't need to be labeled in order - you can have A on the upper-left, and D on the upper-right, that's cool. Remember, electrons running around in your guitar don't care what you call them!  So long as you attach wires to the proper terminals for a given pole, you're golden. (Which then says, if you have a too-short wire for the pole you're currently hooking up, you might get away with moving everything on that pole to a difference pole on the physical switch, where the short wire will fit.) Along with all of this is the use of "lever up" and "lever down". That's a red-herring if ever we've seen one, because generally speaking, you can rotate the switch in its hole!* So don't worry if you get it 'backwards'.  (However, you can easily avoid this by testing the completed lash-up before installing it back into the guitar. Simply execute the "tap test" while everything is still on the workbench.) Oh my god, guys, this makes so much sense! And thanks for telling me about the "tap test" sumgai, because I had this question: once I solder everything, you know, I want to check if everything works, and I'd rather do this before stringing up the whole thing: so there is a way of testing if the electronics were soldered correctly with a digital Multimeter or LCR meter right? How exactly do you do this? Thanks! |
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Post by thedirestrat on Jan 30, 2022 18:24:47 GMT -5
Secondly, I have a few things, four things, I want to run by you guys. Just want to know if what I'm thinking is indeed correct 1. For this 4P3T switch, all of the 4 things (those are the poles and their respective common terminals) I encircled below are independent right? So like, let's just say the top left circled one and the bottom left circled one, when a terminal is selected in each of them (such as 'A1' and 'C1'), those A1 and C1 aren't connected right? The only thing that "connects" is the common terminal and the terminal in one of those 'circles' (poles), such as CA and A1. Is this correct?  2. For this part of the schematic, there would be three wires going into the "third" lug of the volume pot? One going from the "third" volume lug to a switch pole, another one going from the same place to central lug of the tone pot, and another one going from the same place (volume "third" lug) to another switch pole, correct? Good thing I'm not using a treble bleed or else that would be pretty hard squeezing it in there with three other wires! (I mean you don't have to fit them in the circle as long as they are all soldered to it, but still I like when they are in side the lug circle lol).  3. This green line going vertically down to ground just means that for one of their legs, the capacitor and resistor is grounded (to a potentiometer I'm assuming), and for those two switch poles, there's a wire connected to each of them that are going to be soldered to the volume pot to be grounded?  4. Stuff like those little crosses aren't connected, it's just an overlap of two wires right?  So in "real life" the circled part actually looks like this:  That's all for now, thank you everyone! |
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Post by unreg on Jan 30, 2022 21:34:14 GMT -5
4. Stuff like those little crosses aren't connected, it's just an overlap of two wires right? So in "real life" the circled part actually looks like this: tds, I think yes. I’ve taken an EE class in college and I believe no lines are connected in a circuit diagram unless, one of those bold squares covers the line intersection; then that intersection is connected. 🙂 I remember asking this question in class. |
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Post by newey on Jan 30, 2022 21:59:38 GMT -5
those A1 and C1 aren't connected right? The only thing that "connects" is the common terminal and the terminal in one of those 'circles' (poles), such as CA and A1. Is this correct? Yes. After I posted that, I realized using different colors to show the connections on different poles, rather than making them all red, would have been clearer. But, yes, each pole is independent of the others (unless you connect them together). No need to do so. The tone pot connects there, and the switch pole, but the third wire can just be a jumper between the uppermost switch pole and the lowermost pole. So, two wires connected to the common lug of the upper switch pole, and two to the Vol. pot. Yes, assuming you are using the back of the volume pot as the grounding point. Correct, the green squares where two wires meet indicate a connection. No green square, no connection. Maybe. They don't connect, which is what you mean. But "in real life" they might not cross, they might not even be anywhere near each other. Keep in mind that a schematic diagram has nothing whatsoever to do with the physical locations of things. |
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Post by sumgai on Jan 30, 2022 23:17:18 GMT -5
1. They're electrically independent, but mechanically speaking, they're tied together. 2. No, that's not necessarily true. The reason is, this is a schematic, it shows only those connections that are electrically tied together. Mechanically, meaning in the physical world, you can join (solder) wires and components wherever physically convenient. This means that you may end up choosing to solder the three wires together somewhere else, and then run just one wire to the Vol pot - that's perfectly legal! 3a. Yes, but with a "but". See my answer to #2 - you can choose to make the electrical connection wherever convenient, so long as all the connections are made as described in the schematic diagram. 3b. When you say "to the Vol pot", one presumes you mean the back of the thing, that's usually an acceptable ground point. There are other methods of "going to ground", but let's keep this simple for now. (And you can always ask for more details, that's always OK.) 4. You're correct, a simple crossing without some kind of marker (circle, dot, square, etc.) means "no electrical connection". Like newey said, a schematic's real value is in separating theory and design from the realities of the physical world. Here in the guitar world (including the world of amplifiers), we don't use anything much more than that basic symbols that were devised more than a century ago - they're pretty well understood by most hobbyists and experimenters by now. But always keep in mind that no one was born knowing all this stuff right off the bat, we all had to learn it from someone else first. Just keep asking questions, and one fine day, you'll wake up and realize that you haven't asked a question for at least a week - and you feel like you've been doing this for years. Trust me on this. HTH sumgai |
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Post by thedirestrat on Jan 31, 2022 0:04:38 GMT -5
tds, I think yes. I’ve taken an EE class in college and I believe no lines are connected in a circuit diagram unless, one of those bold squares covers the line intersection; then that intersection is connected. 🙂 I remember asking this question in class., thank you! I figured so much, but I didn't realize that about the bold squares! Thanks for educating me with your education  |
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Post by thedirestrat on Jan 31, 2022 0:25:58 GMT -5
Dear newey and sumgai, thank you for making everything loads clearer! I'm starting to understand this schematic a lot more now, and it's pretty awesome. There's so many "aha" moments, lights are being lit, bulbs are glowing-- yeah the whole business. I understand how the volume pot works, the tone pot, the pickup selector, the bridge pickup and its taps. I still have to figure out the push pull pots (the blend one especially) and the neck pickup. But slowly things are coming together and it feels great. I'm really excited and you guys are the primary reason for that. Thanks for helping me out and making me learn things! But always keep in mind that no one was born knowing all this stuff right off the bat, we all had to learn it from someone else first. Just keep asking questions, and one fine day, you'll wake up and realize that you haven't asked a question for at least a week - and you feel like you've been doing this for years. Trust me on this. , thank you for your kind and thoughtful words, thanks for placing yourself back in your newbie shoes for me XD. I'm in those shoes too right now, but I can feel myself grow out of them. Based off what you are saying, one day I'll wake up with amateur/intermediate shoes and it warms my heart knowing it will be because of you all. |
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Post by newey on Jan 31, 2022 6:38:54 GMT -5
I still have to figure out the push pull pots (the blend one especially) OK, here's another quick lesson.  Yogi has helpfully employed dotted lines to indicate the 2 poles of the push/pull switch. Sometimes, rather than dotted lines, the switch poles will be lettered/numbered as we did with the lever switch. Again, the numbering is arbitrary, but like the lever switch, each pole is independent of the other. In one position, the Common lug "2" connects to 1; pulled up, it connects to 3, and 5 connects to either 4 or 6 on the other pole. Just like the poles of the switches, the pot element of a push/pull pot is independent of the switch, unless you connect them together for a particular wiring scheme. So, on Yogi's schematic, the pot portions of the push/pull pots are shown entirely separate from the switch part; they are in reality two separate components controlled by a single shaft. Your phase switch is similar to the above, but it is a 4-pole double throw toggle switch (4PDT), so it has 4 common lugs, as shown. |
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Post by sumgai on Jan 31, 2022 12:37:42 GMT -5
newey beat me to it, so let's just extend his lesson. Take a look at this:  (Images cadged from Unklmickey's Modules, clear back in September of 2006.)Here we see the internal logic of a three-way switch, often called a DP3T unit. Like the examples above, it has two poles, but it also has three positions. In a standard DPDT (Double Pole, Double Throw) we don't have that third position in the middle, so for the above discussions, you can just ignore the middle diagram. But I included it for the following reason: it's commonly understood by experienced modders how these switches work, but it's a good idea to review it once in awhile, and to not make newbies run all over the place looking for an explanation of what we old-timers take for granted. So... Note the lines from "common" to the other terminals. When the switch handle is up, the lines are pointing down. Reverse that for the opposite direction, of course. But what's that about a "middle" position? Why, look at the connecting lines - they go in both directions! Yes, one pole is connected up, the other is connected down... and that gives us another opportunity to make a new, and usually useful, connection. You don't need that right now, but I give it about 3 weeks, tops, before you're in here asking "Can I use this DP3T to do such-and-such?". Perhaps even sooner. My point was to show the internal connections of a bog-standard 2 pole, 2-way switch, and I believe that you now have the tools to understand, and successfully make, the translation from a schematic to an on-the-workbench layout diagram. HTH sumgai p.s. I linked to Unklmickey's post, one of several in an entire thread devoted to this very topic. Go check it out, and see if any of that thread makes sense to you. |
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Post by thedirestrat on Jan 31, 2022 23:07:07 GMT -5
Thank you both, you really put a lot of effort in your text and I appreciate it. I understand push pull pots now! As well as DPDT switches, and some of their variants as well. Now I'm focusing on the "grounding" part of the circuit, so I can have that all covered as well. I read an awesome article about grounding in guitar on Lindy Fralin's website. Grounding is something we do for metal parts so they can rid themselves of excess electrons that "live" on their surface and also reduce noise. I remember this about conductors in my E&M class. I also learned that the reason we ground the "spring claw" of a Strat to the volume pot, is not to ground the strings, but instead to ground US via the strings! My hot head must capture so many EM waves, good thing for grounding! I also remember, newey, you quoting from ChrisK that for pickups, there's "hot" and "not hot" leads, no grounding, and this makes sense because you know there's no real "metal surfaces" on a pickup. Unless its a Tele neck and bridge pickup, with metal covers and baseplates, and I will be sure to ground those. Anyways, I have two questions about grounding, I think I know the answer, but I want to make sure. After that I'll post a picture of the "grounding" circuit of this build, if that makes any sense (A diagram just focusing on grounding). 1. Does shielding, like copper shielding a pickguard and a control+pickup cavity, need to be grounded? On my Strat, I soldered a wire on a wall of the cavity and connected it to the volume pot (to ground). This is not an unnecessary ground connection because the shielding should technically be touching the volume pot and maybe ground because of that? 2. I know how you ground the wires (or rather yourself) on a Strat, how is it done on a Telecaster? I have a, uh, hypothesis: The steel plate of the bridge pickup is grounded (Rob from Cavalier pickup gave me the wire to ground the screw that attaches to the steelplate). Well that very screw is attached to the bridge mount (bridge assembly), which holds the stings-- so I'm guessing that the strings and the bridge mount can ground via that screw? Here is my "grounding" schematic:  Just realized, does my Out of Phase Switch need to be grounded too? Wait, it's connected to the control plate directly, like the tone knob, so never mind! Thanks AGAIN! |
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Post by newey on Feb 1, 2022 8:55:32 GMT -5
Does shielding, like copper shielding a pickguard and a control+pickup cavity, need to be grounded? On my Strat, I soldered a wire on a wall of the cavity and connected it to the volume pot (to ground). This is not an unnecessary ground connection because the shielding should technically be touching the volume pot and maybe ground because of that? Yes, shielding needs to be grounded. It is also helpful, I think, to distinguish between signal grounds and shield grounds. Both sets of grounds ultimately need to connect to the output jack sleeve/barrel, but ideally we want them separate until some point shortly before the jack. There's no harm in running an extra wire, but you are correct that the shield should be grounded to the pot casing (which is then grounded in turn). But if you are going to rely on contact between the pot case and the shielding, best to check that connection with your meter to be sure it makes a good ground. (Should read at most a few Ohms). Correct. But check it with a meter just to be sure. I have also scraped the underside of a Tele bridge plate with a scratch awl (so as to roughen up the surface for a good solder connection) and soldered a wire to the underside, which is then run to the cavity. Your "grounding diagram" looks fine, however, with the phase switch on the neck pickup, the pickup cover must have a separate shield wire, it can't be the signal ground as well (which is how most Tele pickups are wired). If I recall from earlier in the thread, I believe yours are custom ones with a separate wire for the cover shield ground, which is fine. But with "stock" Tele neck pickups, the cover ground has to be disconnected from the coil ground and a separate wire run, in order to add a phase switch to the neck pickup. The same is true if the phase switch is on the Tele bridge pup- the baseplate needs a separate shield ground wire. The point of the ChrisK reference is that "ground" is a DC term, and we're talking AC, so it's a bit misleading. But we use the term "grounding" in our discussions of guitar circuits as a convenience. This has nothing to do with metal surfaces. Things like metal covers should be "grounded" to reduce noise. These are shield grounds, they are not carrying our guitar signal. But we also need to "ground" (or, alternatively, you could say "attach the 'not hot' wires") to the output jack sleeve/barrel in order to form a complete circuit. The barrel sleeve is then ultimately "grounded" via one conductor of our guitar cable, and then into our amplifier, where the circuit is completed. The amp is then ultimately grounded through our household circuitry to the Earth (which is why our UK cousins refer to the ground connection as "earth"). |
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Post by unreg on Feb 1, 2022 12:55:43 GMT -5
Here is my "grounding" schematic: You plan to ground lots of items to your vol pot case. It is optimal to ground to a separate Star Ground, as ashcatlt teaches. That way your pot casing doesn’t receive all that heat; pot casing is difficult to solder too; so your vol pot isn’t possibly ruined; and if the vol pot case is used for shield grounding your cavity: then once the vol pot becomes loose, you lose that shield ground. Pot casing has been a common grounding spot for a looong time bc, I think, Fender used that location from the very beginning. As newey said, be sure to keep shield grounds separate from signal grounds until right before the ground sleeve connection. This works wonderfully! 😀 And, be sure to disconnect your pedals when testing your grounding. I made that mistake, by leaving them connected, and it became quite a lengthy extremely-involved process. |
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Post by thedirestrat on Feb 2, 2022 0:47:25 GMT -5
Yes, shielding needs to be grounded. It is also helpful, I think, to distinguish between signal grounds and shield grounds. Both sets of grounds ultimately need to connect to the output jack sleeve/barrel, but ideally we want them separate until some point shortly before the jack. There's no harm in running an extra wire, but you are correct that the shield should be grounded to the pot casing (which is then grounded in turn). But if you are going to rely on contact between the pot case and the shielding, best to check that connection with your meter to be sure it makes a good ground. (Should read at most a few Ohms). Thank you! The two "groundings" makes a lot of sense, thank you! How exactly do I check the connection between the pot case and shielding? I attach one terminal of the multimeter to the pot casing and the other one to the wire attached to the shielding? Correct. But check it with a meter just to be sure. Again, this is for the Telecaster bridge assembly, bridge pickup steel plate and the screw, how do I check this with the meter? I have also scraped the underside of a Tele bridge plate with a scratch awl (so as to roughen up the surface for a good solder connection) and soldered a wire to the underside, which is then run to the cavity. Ooh, why do you do this? To ground the shielding? But I can just attach it to a pot right? How does the Tele bridge plate (thing that has strings and saddles) sit parallel (flush) with the body if there's a wire underneath it? Your "grounding diagram" looks fine, however, with the phase switch on the neck pickup, the pickup cover must have a separate shield wire, it can't be the signal ground as well (which is how most Tele pickups are wired). If I recall from earlier in the thread, I believe yours are custom ones with a separate wire for the cover shield ground, which is fine. Thank you! Glad that Rob thought about the neck pickup grounding thing! Also, thank you for explaining the reason why the pickup cover shielding has to be disconnected for out of phase stuff! This has nothing to do with metal surfaces. Things like metal covers should be "grounded" to reduce noise. These are shield grounds, they are not carrying our guitar signal. But we also need to "ground" (or, alternatively, you could say "attach the 'not hot' wires") to the output jack sleeve/barrel in order to form a complete circuit. The barrel sleeve is then ultimately "grounded" via one conductor of our guitar cable, and then into our amplifier, where the circuit is completed. The amp is then ultimately grounded through our household circuitry to the Earth (which is why our UK cousins refer to the ground connection as "earth"). Yes!! I understand almost all of this, and you just completed the puzzle by teaching about signal ground-- there's a "difference" between signal and shield ground. We ground all metal objects, and we "ground" "not hot" leads to the pot to complete the circuit (it goes to the jack). |
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Post by thedirestrat on Feb 2, 2022 1:02:02 GMT -5
You plan to ground lots of items to your vol pot case. It is optimal to ground to a separate Star Ground, as ashcatlt teaches. That way your pot casing doesn’t receive all that heat; pot casing is difficult to solder too; so your vol pot isn’t possibly ruined; and if the vol pot case is used for shield grounding your cavity: then once the vol pot becomes loose, you lose that shield ground. Pot casing has been a common grounding spot for a looong time bc, I think, Fender used that location from the very beginning. As newey said, be sure to keep shield grounds separate from signal grounds until right before the ground sleeve connection. This works wonderfully! 😀 And, be sure to disconnect your pedals when testing your grounding. I made that mistake, by leaving them connected, and it became quite a lengthy extremely-involved process. Thanks unreg! Thank you for the pedal advice! I can imagine how annoying that must have been   Also, your post made me come up with some questions. 1. What do you and newey mean exactly when you guys say to keep the grounds separate? Let's just say I put all my grounding wires on the volume pot. Separating means making two separate blobs of solder, and putting all my shielding (metal surfaces) grounds to one, and all my signal grounds in the other solder blob? I can sort of see why you'd want to do this. 2. On the Yogi B diagram, I see that for two pickup selector poles, their respective common lugs go to ground-- this is a signal ground right? 3. unreg, what do you mean by a separate Star Ground? I know what star grounding is, it's that solder blob "all my (shielding or signal) ground leads go here together" technique which I love. But a separate one not on the volume pot? So, for example I have all my shielding grounds star grounded to the volume pot, and the signal grounds star grounded to somewhere else? Where exactly? I know it could be basically anywhere. The tone pot? The control plate? The shielding? 4. I got these little bourns pots:  How exactly do I star ground/solder wires on this thing? On the sides of the casing? On the DPDT switch part? Thankfully they are metal if so, because the CTS ones are plastic which doesn't allow you to do that (obviously) Much love, and many thanks  |
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Post by newey on Feb 2, 2022 6:53:13 GMT -5
One of the advantages to using a star grounding scheme, as unreg says, is to avoid soldering to the pots altogether. The back of a pot could certainly be the point where you put the star ground, but that's a lot of wires to solder to the back of a pot. Typically, when grounding to the backs of pots, the grounds are not star-grounded, they're daisy-chained from one pot to another. Nothing wrong with that, guitar manufacturers have been doing it that way for 70 years or so. There are any number of ways to wire a star ground. A washer, screwed into the side of the cavity and with ground wires soldered to it is probably the most common way. You need to clean the washer with a solvent and also sand it a bit to get good solder adhesion, but you can avoid soldering to pots that way. The pot cases get grounded via contact with the shielding of the cavity and/or pickguard.  Becasue a solder connection is more secure than a screw connection. We're talking the bridge end of the wire, not the end that goes to ground in the control cavity (which goes to the ground point, wherever that is, back of a pot if that's what you're doing). Typically, there is a channel for the wire to go from the bridge to the control cavity, the end of the channel keeps the wire below the surface mostly. Might have to enlarge the "divot" at the ends of the channel a bit, but once you screw the bridge plate down ir should be flush, it's not like you need a big blob of solder to hold the wire. Set your meter to read resistance (Ω) Test between the pot case and the shielding. You should see at most a few Ohms. Low resistance equals a good connection. Check between the bridge plate and the jack sleeve lug. Again, should only be a few Ohms. However, if the bridge plate is chrome-plated you may get a poor reading, so try to test to the saddle screws or something else that's not plated. Ideally, you'd test to the strings, but we're assuming the guitar is unstrung at this point in the operation. As I said above, they can only be kept separate for so long, they all have to ultimately meet at the jack sleeve. If you collect them all on the back of a pot, and then the pot back is wired to the jack sleeve, that's as far as you can go in keeping them separate. What we mean here is that you should not be running the guitar signal "ground" (or "not hot") through any portion of your shielding or shield ground wires, to avoid potentially introducing noise into the signal path. Two separate blobs of solder is meaningless in terms of grounding- they're both going to the same place. Probably be easier to solder them that way, as opposed to one big blob, but I try to avoid soldering to pots at all, as unreg said. I've fried a few pots that way over the years. Modern pots are mostly plastic inside, it's fairly easy to to melt the innards. |
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Post by sumgai on Feb 2, 2022 12:03:27 GMT -5
'dire, I'm forced to take a short sabbatical for this week, and perhaps the next as well (other duties call). You seem to be in good hands with the others helping you, I'm confident that when I get back, you'll have everything all packaged up and ready for delivery.  sumgai |
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Post by unreg on Feb 2, 2022 15:57:29 GMT -5
Thanks unreg! Thank you for the pedal advice! I can imagine how annoying that must have been You’re welcome! 😊 I guess it was annoying, but it ended up being a cherished learning experience.  Also, your post made me come up with some questions. 1. What do you and newey mean exactly when you guys say to keep the grounds separate? Let's just say I put all my grounding wires on the volume pot. Separating means making two separate blobs of solder, and putting all my shielding (metal surfaces) grounds to one, and all my signal grounds in the other solder blob? No sir. Separating means adding separate Star Ground. Blobs of solder on the same surface are all connected bc it’s the SAME surface. 🙂 2. On the Yogi B diagram, I see that for two pickup selector poles, their respective common lugs go to ground-- this is a signal ground right? Yes, I believe so; I’m under the impression that any ground attached to a pot lug is a signal ground. Shield grounds are grounding wires for items such as the guitar cavity and the back of pots (the pot cases). 3. unreg, what do you mean by a separate Star Ground? I know what star grounding is, it's that solder blob "all my (shielding or signal) ground leads go here together" technique which I love. But a separate one not on the volume pot? So, for example I have all my shielding grounds star grounded to the volume pot, and the signal grounds star grounded to somewhere else? Where exactly? I know it could be basically anywhere. The tone pot? The control plate? The shielding? Like newey suggested, use some other item screwed into a guitar cavity wall. Do NOT purchase a Fender washer… I’ve learned the hard way that they are not the sort of material to solder too. And he eventually told me about his use of a paperclip Star Ground. That’s what I ended up using bc of my poor washer buying skills. Paperclips work quite well for Star Ground.  Note: If you use one, make sure it’s just metal; sand it slightly first; be very careful that is is long enough. I soldered many signal ground wires to it and then cut off the excess; cut off a bit too much; leave some room for an extra ground wire. Just simply made a small loop at one end and screwed that tiny loop into my painted cavity wall. And used another screw at the clip’s other end to keep it somewhat flush against the wall. 4. I got these little bourns pots: How exactly do I star ground/solder wires on this thing? On the sides of the casing? On the DPDT switch part? Thankfully they are metal if so, because the CTS ones are plastic which doesn't allow you to do that (obviously) I am under the impression that CTS pot cases are coated in a thin layer of solder, so soldering a shield wire isn’t rough. Mine look like they are coated with solder; adding solder to solder is quite easy with an appropriately hot soldering iron. My guitar isn’t open right now, but I believe I soldered a shield ground wire to the top of each pot case. As newey said, you don’t have to solder anything to pot cases. Maybe I didn’t either. Also, it’s possible to solder pot case shield grounds to metal rings around the pot shafts. Remember any wire connected to a piece of metal, or a solder covered case, affects the entire destination. Keep shield ground destinations separate from signal ground destinations until they reach the jack’s shaft wire. If you choose to run signal grounds through shield grounds, like on the back of a pot, unwelcomed noise happens. 😔 God bless your efforts. 😃 EDIT: Just opened my guitar… the jacks sleeve wire skips through the control cavity, enters the second cavity, and shield grounds the (my) Floyd Rose. Then that ground travels across my three springs, reaches the claw (I think that’s the right name), and a wire transfers ground from the claw back into the control cavity to my Star Ground paperclip. My volume pot is obviously grounded from my paperclip. You will probably notice that I am running all my signal grounds through the shield grounded claw and Floyd Rose, but that all happens away from the pot cases; therefore no noise is created. The pot cases get grounded via contact with the shielding of the cavity and/or pickguard. ^that IS true (OBVIOUSLY 😀), but a wire does run between my pot cases bc that grounding of pot cases, from contact with shielding of the cavity, breaks if a pot ever becomes loose. So, my shield wire between pots just transfers ground as a backup. As newey says, there’s countless ways to Star Ground; hope you have some useful ideas. |
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Post by thedirestrat on Feb 2, 2022 23:20:15 GMT -5
Hey guys, thank you for the VERY informative responses! I had a busy day today, so I didn't have time to give your responses a good look over, I just read them once. sumgai, you helped me so much, and I cannot thank you enough for this! Go ahead and do your duty sir, you are awesome. But just to get one thing straight: Star grounding is when you solder all your grounds to one place, correct? Like the back of the volume pot, or a washer attached to the shielded cavity? All signal grounds and shield grounds will be separate until they reach the star grounding point, where that is attached to the jack sleeve indirectly (either through volume pot casing, or cavity that connects to the volume pot via well "metal on metal"?) Thank you and I will be focusing on your responses and the "grounding diagram" a lot more intensely tomorrow and Friday! |
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Post by newey on Feb 3, 2022 5:56:18 GMT -5
But just to get one thing straight: Star grounding is when you solder all your grounds to one place, correct? Like the back of the volume pot, or a washer attached to the shielded cavity? All signal grounds and shield grounds will be separate until they reach the star grounding point, where that is attached to the jack sleeve indirectly (either through volume pot casing, or cavity that connects to the volume pot via well "metal on metal"?) Yes, all signal grounds and shield grounds should be separate until they meet at the star grounding point. But the star ground point needs a wire to connect it to the jack sleeve, you don't want to rely on shielding to carry that connection. Whether you wire from the pots to the star ground point, as unreg has done, is up to you, but there is no "indirectly" connecting to the jack sleeve. If you are going to ground things to the pot casings, then it's probably best to "daisy-chain" them rather than trying to use one pot back as a star grounding point- you'll end up with too many wires to be soldered to the back of the one pot. |
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Post by unreg on Feb 3, 2022 11:52:19 GMT -5
But the star ground point needs a wire to connect it to the jack sleeve, you don't want to rely on shielding to carry that connection. Whether you wire from the pots to the star ground point, as unreg has done, is up to you, but there is no "indirectly" connecting to the jack sleeve. Did I not ground correctly? It works wonderfully, but I’m truly sry for sharing my mistake; if it’s a mistake. |
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Post by newey on Feb 3, 2022 12:02:34 GMT -5
Did I not ground correctly? Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "incorrectly". You said you wired from the pot shells to the star grounding point, as opposed to relying on the contact through the shielding. That is fine, although I wouldn't worry about grounding the pot shells only to the shielding. If you did not wire the jack sleeve to the star grounding point, though, I'd be concerned about that. If it works, fine, I'm not saying you need to open it up and change it. But if it stops working, that would be the first place I'd look. As we have said repeatedly, we don't want to use shielding to carry signal, just as a "best practices" kind of thing. Your star ground point collects all the grounds, both signal grounds and shield grounds. We should not be relying on mere contact with the shielding to connect the star ground point to the output jack sleeve, as the wire from the star point to the jack sleeve is part of the signal path (as well as of the shield path). Hope that clarifies what I meant. |
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Post by unreg on Feb 3, 2022 12:26:20 GMT -5
Hope that clarifies what I meant. Yes, it does; thank you sir! 😊 Your star ground point collects all the grounds, both signal grounds and shield grounds. We should not be relying on mere contact with the shielding to connect the star ground point to the output jack sleeve, as the wire from the star point to the jack sleeve is part of the signal path (as well as of the shield path). Delving deeper… my jack’s sleeve grounds my strings first. I get that signal shouldn’t travel through shield grounds. But, all of that happens away, even in a different cavity, from the pots; does shield grounding travel backwards… but, I guess that wouldn’t make sense bc everything is always connected to the jack’s sleeve. The pot cases are purely shield ground… so how does sending signal/shield ground through shield ground on its way to my star ground create noise or other maladies? Just wondering 🙂 sry to ask in another’s thread. |
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Post by newey on Feb 3, 2022 16:00:13 GMT -5
so how does sending signal/shield ground through shield ground on its way to my star ground create noise or other maladies? Well, we don't know for sure about noise, but in theory it could make a difference, so best practices is to avoid it. It wouldn't "create noise", the noise comes from the outside world, the question is whether it gets introduced into your signal or not. Let's be clear. If you simply wire one pot casee to another (i.e., daisy chain them together), and there is nothing else connected to the pot cases, that is just shielding- which would then be connected to your star ground in some fashion, hopefully. Now, if you have shielded the underside of the pickguard (or the cavity, if it's a rear-routed axe), then your pot cases should also be grounded through the shileding, which should also be connected to your star ground point in some fashion (usually via contact/screw) So the daisy-chained wires are a duplicate path, not really needed, but as you said, the pot may come loose at some point, so perhaps more secure to wire it as well. But if you grounded the pickup "not hot" wire to the back of the pot as well, that's a signal connection- and your pickup's signal is now traveling through your shield ground. This is not "wrong", guitar manufacturers do this all the time, but it sort of defeats the purpose of your star grounding. If you're star-grounding, you'd want that pickup "negative" connection to go to the star ground directly. Again, this is a "best practice", not an absolute. Star grounding your guitar may make zero difference in the noise level. But in theory it could make a difference, so we do so to avoid a potential risk of introducing noise into our guitar signal. While guitar manufacturers typically daisy-chain ground wires from pot to pot, and then to the jack -, if you open up virtually any piece of active electronics equipment, like a radio reciever or stereo, you'll find the signal path has been star-grounded. Those manufacturers do so because it may reduce noise, it's a best practice to do so. But it does take more effort to do so, so guitar manufacturers stick with the philosophy of "we've always done it that way" . . ."if it was good enough for ol' Leo Fender . . ", etc. |
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Post by unreg on Feb 3, 2022 17:27:50 GMT -5
so how does sending signal/shield ground through shield ground on its way to my star ground create noise or other maladies? IOW: so how does sending signal/shield ground (the jack’s sleeve) through shield ground (my Floyd Rose, springs, and claw) on its way to my star ground create noise or other maladies? The Floyd Rose, springs, and claw are in a separate cavity. Not that that matters, but I don’t ever access that cavity so damage to those soldered connections, all tested with multimeter, is not really possible, I don’t think. Completely understand now about Star Ground and daisy chaining; thank you newey. 😊 |
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Post by newey on Feb 3, 2022 18:18:39 GMT -5
Not clear what you mean here. The jack sleeve is the end point. Since a picture may help, here's a stylized diagram of a star ground scheme, using a washer and screw into the copper shielding as the star ground point. Signal grounds (the pickup "not hot" wires and the ground connections from the Vol/tone pot lug(s)) do not run with or through the shield grounds (the braided shield wires from the pickups, the bridge/string ground, the copper shielding) until they reach this point, and then are connected to the output jack sleeve.  (Note that I labelled the wires from the vol and tone pots as "arguably signal"- they really aren't carrying signal, they're just grounding the third lug of the volume pot and the tone cap, but I'm treating them as if they were carrying signal) In my example here, the shells of the pots are assumed to be grounded via contact with the copper cavity/pickguard shielding, so there are no separate wires run for the shells. If there were, these would also be shielde grounds, not signal. Same as for grounding the frames of any switches or other components. |
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Post by unreg on Feb 3, 2022 22:03:58 GMT -5
Not clear what you mean here. The jack sleeve is the end point. Since a picture may help :  note: my guitar is rear access; ^drawn not so good with my finger keypurple == wire attached to jack's shield light blue == bottom of Floyd Rose pink == 3 springs brown == claw green == wire transferring ground (from claw to paperclip) orange == paperclip (the Star Ground) black == outline of cavity 1 and cavity 2; terrible drawing of jack yellow == cavity numbers (labels) grey == horrible arrows and words/notes Since the jack's sleeve connection is the nearest part of the guitar to the earth, I mistakenly was thinking that the ground signal comes from the earth and goes into the guitar. HOWEVER, ground is NOT a signal; rather it's a destination... so my mistake. According to your excellent diagram and notes, I think my Star Ground is NOT set up correctly. Though, it works really well... now, at least. EDIT: My two pots are in cavity 1. Also, I believe that my Volume pot correctly lacks a wire connecting its case to its lug 3. Though, there is a wire that provides the Vol pot case a path to my Star Ground paperclip. |
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Post by newey on Feb 3, 2022 22:33:20 GMT -5
I'm not exactly following your diagram, although I'm assuming there's more connected to the paperclip than just one green wire. But as i said, if it works and isn't noisy, leave it be. "Don't mess with success"  But in order for a star-grounding scheme to be properly done, the jack sleeve would be connected directly to the star ground point/paperclip. And . . . we have now thoroughly hijacked thedirestrat's thread. Sorry! |
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Post by thedirestrat on Mar 12, 2022 17:54:31 GMT -5
Hey everyone!
I know it’s been a long time since I replied, but I’m still doing this project!! I am almost done staining the neck, and this week I’ll continue the quest for completely figuring out the electronics for this guitar.
Thanks for all the help so far and sorry for my long absence.
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Post by newey on Mar 12, 2022 22:59:48 GMT -5
thedirestrat- Keep us informed! We'll be happy to help suss out the electronics whenever you're ready.
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Post by thedirestrat on Mar 12, 2022 23:09:39 GMT -5
thedirestrat- Keep us informed! We'll be happy to help suss out the electronics whenever you're ready. Music to my ears… you guys are the best…🥺 |
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So long as you attach wires to the proper terminals for a given pole, you're golden. (Which then says, if you have a too-short wire for the pole you're currently hooking up, you might get away with moving everything on that pole to a difference pole on the physical switch, where the short wire will fit.)
(However, you can easily avoid this by testing the completed lash-up before installing it back into the guitar. Simply execute the "tap test" while everything is still on the workbench.)
