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Can’t find wiring for odd pickup

I have a humbucker. It has only two wires. White and bare wire.

im pretty sure the white is hot and the bare is earth. I’ve tested it with a basic output jack and I believe it’s wouldnt function if the wires are reversed?? Is it possible it would be reverse?...also all the different Wiring diagrams I see are all in relation to 4 or 5 wires.

The pickup is not single coil.

Id like to wire 1 volume 1 tone 1 jack. I see diagrams for piezos and Seymour Duncan’s diagrams (not the same)) .can anyone help with a simple diagram including the capacitor . Thank you

ps in all instances describe what’s earth and what’s hot please. If a pic helps please let me know .

both wires come out of the pickup with one red wire ...but inside the red wire (covering of some sort) is the white and bare wire

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on February 9, 2018 at 7:48pm

a bit out of focus pic

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832020A7-9072-4F7E-BA61-C179E8EDA259.jpeg, 2.9 MB

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on February 9, 2018 at 8:27pm

No vol or tone until I know for sure which is the hot...just want to hook up a jack /pup only....the buzz sounds louder when the white lead is hooked up to the tip of the jack and the bare wire to the opposite.

in this pic I found the red wire is where my bare wire is and my white wire is where the black wire is. It sounds cleaner and less buzz ...does this mean the hot is the bare wire on my humbucker? When reversed the hum is louder but there’s signal...taking all pots out of the equation

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on February 11, 2018 at 11:12am

The white wire is your hot wire and the bare wire is ground and provides shielding for the hot wire.

The shielding wire is also attached to the pickup's metal cover, so reversal of the wires will not work unless the connection to the cover is cut and a separate cover ground wire is run to ground. Or the pickup's ground wire is separated from the shield wire and add a new wire to that for hot - white becomes ground in those scenario's.

Volume and tone pots, switches, bridge or stop tail piece and jack must have a ground connection to stop unwanted noise. Pickup to jack without strings being grounded will cause some noise.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on February 11, 2018 at 1:54pm

Thank you for the explanation. It was just odd that all buzzing stopped when the hot (white) was switched to the sleeve. Thank you!

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on February 12, 2018 at 10:46am

Check all your solder joints to make sure they are good too.

Also check for little beads of solder that may have dropped into something it shouldn't have and causing a short. I had that happen once and it was very aggravating.