Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gilles C. Caron on October 18, 2016 at 10:34am

You started a nice cool guitar there...

You don't have to shield everything, but mostly where you install the pots, below the pickup(s) if you use some and use shielded cable.

Make sure every grounds are connected together.

But that's only my opinion...

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Permalink Reply by Rickyboy on October 19, 2016 at 9:08am

please read my reply below to Gilles

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Permalink Reply by Rickyboy on October 19, 2016 at 9:09am

thx see below

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Permalink Reply by Gilles C. Caron on October 18, 2016 at 12:57pm

Just because I forgot to mention it, the lid being metal, you don't need more shielding under it except a wire to ground it if it's not already connected with the pot or jack, etc...

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Permalink Reply by Rickyboy on October 19, 2016 at 9:08am

First off thx for the nice comments on my build, 

.....ok I'm bad when it comes to electronics..... but your comments sound like a good thing.  I wouldn't know shielded pots from  not shielded.... I usually get my vol. tone controls from Gitty so are they "shielded"? And because the sign is metal I dont need shielding?  and how do I determine if the cable is shielded ? Will shielded parts be in a copper wrap?  One more thing....when I determine which is the grd. for the vol / tone pots do I connect them with a grd. to the sign  ??? man I'm confused now....

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Permalink Reply by Rickyboy on October 19, 2016 at 9:44am

thx Wayfinder.... interesting and informative.....

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Permalink Reply by JL on October 20, 2016 at 2:11am

Twisting the wires does 2 things, each little loop reacts to incoming RF opposite of the adjacent loop, canceling out the interference, and the twist keeps the wires in close contact adding a capacitance-like effect to the signal propagating through the wire farther with less loss, the way the differential signals in the cat5 lan wire from your desktop to the router works.

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Permalink Reply by Gilles C. Caron on October 19, 2016 at 10:41am

It was very well explained by Wayfinder and I agree that "shielding" is not always needed. But grounding is...

For example, I like to shield my guitars because there is a lot of electrical devices where I use my guitars. But Sometimes I only twist the wires and connect all the negative sides to a commun point which will be a grounding point.

I began connecting (wiring) the electronics of a guitar this afternoon, And I took a photo of the pickup wires.

As you can see, the is a black and an orange wire. The black one will be connected to the metal part (ground) of the jack, I always make sure that the strings will be connected to the ground. In this guitar, I will connect the metal plate of the string holder to the ground.

There was no shield around the pickups wires, but just because I must have OCD... I decided to add a shield to the wires. I took the wires out of a shielded cable, and inserted the pickup wires into that shield.

This will become a shielded cable, and I will connect the shield and the black wire together and then to the commun ground.

Btw, you don't have to read this message... but I hope that the picture will help you to understand.

Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on October 19, 2016 at 12:37pm

Only in Bob's country bunker...

Rollin Rollin Rollin..

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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on October 20, 2016 at 2:38am

Coming to think about it, the chicken wire around the stage would act as a Faraday cage. So no.

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Permalink Reply by Gilles C. Caron on October 20, 2016 at 4:39am

Not sure about that...

Sometimes, most of the electrical noise comes from the equipment of the bands sometimes...

For example, my bro-in-law went to a bar with his band a long time ago. They couldn't play without blowing a fuse or two. So they had to connect their equipment before the fuse panel (warning... not legal...) to be able to play and use their own lighting, etc... normally in a big town, you can't do that, but in a small town, everything is possible...

In another bar, he got almost electrocuted when he touched the microphone while singing. His strings were grounded, but the mike was "hot". The setup man measured 220V on the case of the mike... while my bro-in-law was rushed to the hospital because his heart was acting strangely.

But playing at home, alone, is normally safe, and you don't need shielding...

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Permalink Reply by Gilles C. Caron on October 20, 2016 at 7:31am

Sorry for my multiple posts...

It just happens that I got a good example today that says... don't worry too much about that...

This is a picture of the connections (wiring) of a guitar I had to check for a friend.

One pickup has a shielded wire, one has only 2 separate wires (not twisted) the wire going to the output jack is shielded, and finally the controls are grounded together with a black wire. The 2 volumes controls and the tone are connected with a sinple red wire.

No shielding, just a simple wiring.

So if it's good for a big brand, it's ok for you. Go simple first.

I thought that it could help you understand a bit more what was explained in words...

Cheers,

Gilles

Btw, the problem was not in the wiring... it was the output jack, so...

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