Hey gents -
I'm closing in on my first build and threw some strings on her last night. Man, this has rekindled my love for guitar. While my slide technique is sloppy, it was so great to hear sound coming out of her for the first time.
Surprisingly, without even plugging her in, she threw some good sound. She needs some tweaking to get the intonation and action right, but that's minor.
Tonight, I plugged her in for the first time but have no sound coming from the electronics. I'm running a simple setup (pickup, volume and input jack), thought I had it right but I've made a mistake somewhere along the line.
I checked wiring diagrams online but can't see what I"m doing wrong.
Here's what I can tell you:
1) The pickup came from China but has the same 'S' that Seymour Duncan has... not sure if this is a true SD pickup...
2) The wiring looks like this: black wire, a red/green soldered together and a white wire.
I'll post a photo of how I have it soldered but here's what I did:
1) Looking at the volume pot from the back (3 tangs), I have the far right lead soldered to the back of the pot as a ground.
2) THe middle the hot wire (I think) and goes to the input jack 'hot'
3) The left-most volume pot tang I have hooked up to the pickup 'white' (hot?) wire.
4) Black ground wire runs from the input jack ground to the back of the volume pot. I've also soldered the black wire from the pickup to this location.
5) The red and green wires coming off the pickup were soldered together. I just put some heat-shrink on these and left them
If I tap the pickup with my finger, I can hear some 'percussion' through the amp, but the strings don't resonate at all.
I'm completely green w/ electronics and appreciate any help.
Thanks!
Tags:
UPDATE -
I used a Google Translate app that can read characters in an image (pretty slick) and determined:
RED/GREEN - 'Cut a single line' (not sure what this would mean)
WHITE - 'Main line' (assuming 'positive')
BLACK - 'Ground'
Going by the v/c pot wiring (3 tangs, left to right 3-2-1), would this be correct:
3 = White wire
2 = Red / green?
1 = Grounded to back of v/c pot + black wire from pickup
Determined that red/green is 'single pole' (I'm assuming for a single / three-way switch).
Since I'm not using a switch, would I just leave the red/green wires off?
I think David is probably correct Mike, did you have a bare woven wire originally as well? If so that, along with the black need to go to ground, green and red stay connected to each other only, i'm sorry if i misled you earlier, as there was no mention of the bare wire that i can see now in your last pic
Thanks gents - this is extremely helpful. David - I appreciate the time to detail and for the 101-sketch ;). This is a good road map for me.
Darryl - no worries at all. My photo didn't show the woven wire around the black wire very clearly. I can't even really see it and would have to remove the jacket to see for sure.
...
I assume the black wire from the jack goes to the far right tang on the pot (denoted by the 'ground' symbol) - sorry if this is obvious, I want to make sure I have this right.
Also, should I be running another ground wire from the instrument jack to the tail-piece?
I didn't sand my volume put and it did have a bit of a 'slick' on it. Thanks for the above tips. I'm also wondering if my second run at this is using too thin of wire. What gauge should I be using here (I think the first run was too thick....).
Mike
Where is the emoji showing the heavens opening up, golden light beaming down and angelic CBG melodies filling the air?
That sums up how I felt when the first amplified note came through my little tube amp. I even went so far as clipping the strings for a small 'finale'.
Now I can focus on setting the intonation, tweaking the bridge / nut and celebrating the completion of my first build. Sounds like a a night for a scotch.
...
I was pulling my hair out last night. Your advice and images helped get her going. After my first attempt tonight, I just wired the jack directly to the pickup, which worked, so I knew there had to be an issue with the pot or my wiring.
I then grabbed a brand new volume pot, sanded the back, carefully soldered, added a ground wire to the tail piece while in there, and now she sounds great!!
Thanks a ton gents!
Mike
wqell done mate. a faulty pot seems to be the issue. it really looked like you had it wired correctly. happy playing
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