guitar techies please help

ZoSo58LP

rock guy
okay i'm rewiring my strat with only the neck single coil and the bridge humbucker, but using a 3way toggle switch instead of my 5 way..okay everyhting worked fine wtih the 5 way..but for some reason, i just cant hook everything up with my 3way! i mean it seems so simple, you'd hook up another volume pot for the neck pickup, and have the original for the bridge..the one for the bridge is hooked to my output, and everythings grounded on top of the volume switches...now i hook everything up rgiht, but theres always a buzz! and it gets a lil less when you touch something metal, so obviously there's a grounding problem, but i cant figure out where! i just don't understand whats going on...im not using a tone pot either because my 3way switch is in one of the tone pot's places...so wtfs going on? please help..:(
 
sory to double post but.....i figured out that when I touch the wire that hooks up to the output, thats when the noise gets a lot louder...but its still there when i solder it to a point on my volume pot...and when i touch any other wire (example: wires coming out of the pickups) the noise goes down a little,b ut theres still a buzz...i really dont understand why this doesnt wrok...

basically in the end, i guess i just need a diagram for a 1 single coil, 1 humbucker, 2 volume, 3 way switch hookup
 
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shot in the dark

just a shot in the dark, did you resoldier the ground to the holders for the tremalo springs? im no guitar tech but ive messed with em a little in my 13 yrs of playing.
 
yeah, i've done that..it's just...ah i cant understand how this doesnt work..the buzz just never goes away aggh
 
hey juststarting, ill check that out and check all the ohms...hey light, thanks for the diagram, i've checked that one out before, only problem is in my setup, i don't have a tone control, and my 3 way is a toggle, not the fender type switch, ya kno? what basically happens is you know how theres 1 wire that hooks to the input jack, and then it's ground? well i bought a replacement pickguard a while ago, and the wire that was hooked up to the jack wasn't long enough so we had to add some....the wire tthat came with the pickguard, one was hooked to the lil solder point, while the bare was soldered...but this was the type of wire that was in 1 casing, ya kno? so like maybe one of my grounds is wrong? grr i can't figure this out, it's insane...and i've inhaled enough soldering fumes for one day lol...but ill give it another stab today, thanks everyone for trying :) if anyone else has any other suggestions, keep em comin! :-D

oh hey and light quick question...in that diagram, even though i cant use it, on the last tone pot, they have 2 wires soldered to one point...why don't they just hook the one up to that open point?
 
sorry again but this time i've taken some pics, im not sure if they'll help, but i dont know..it seems as if there's a problem with the output wire, because everytime i get closer to it, or touch it, it emits a real loud buzz noise...and when i touch the point on the volume pot for where the pickup is hooked, it gets even higher pitched and annoying...but ive replaced the output wire wtih another and it still does it.....but atleast my switch works because i switch to the other volume pot, and the neck pickup makes that same high pitched noise...in these pics, the white wire is the output jack, and the black is the ground...it SHOULD wokr! i wired it up the way you showed me, light..i took an extra tone pot to just throw in there under the pickguard, and this buzz STILL happens, even though i did EVERYTHING right!

http://home.comcast.net/~rampagegl87/pics/1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~rampagegl87/pics/2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~rampagegl87/pics/3.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~rampagegl87/pics/4.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~rampagegl87/pics/5.jpg
 
Hey Zo - I am not sure how much you know about electronics, so if I am telling you things you already know, understand I am only trying to help you here.

That said, anything marked as ground all have to be hooked together. Anotherwords, you should be able to hook one side of the ohm meter to your strings or bridge, and everything else marked as ground should show a dead short across the meter. Also make sure all of the shieldings on all of the wires and all of the casings on the pots show a short to ground as well. You need to hook all of your grounds together.

Then follow your circiut. Light's diagram is 100% correct. Your circuit path should be starting at your pickup, going to it's volumne pot, to the switch then to the jack. In light's drawing, it is going to the tone pot before the jack. Just take the wire going from the switch to the tone pot and hook that to your jack. That will take the tone pot out of his circuit.

If you understand what you are trying to do on paper, when you look at the wires, it will all make sense.

Remember, pickup-volumne-switch-jack for the positives And grounds or negative all hooked together. Piece of cake.

Hope that helps.
 
*edit*'

okay so what i did was i took the ground wire going from the output, and the ground wire that goes to the back of the guitar (hooked to the trem spring things) and i pigtailed them together, and soldered them to the top of my volume pot...then i hooked up my humbucker to that volume pot, and the ground and green wire (i think thtas the colors, im not looking right now, its a seymour duncan sh4) are grounded to the top of that vol pot too..okay then i have a wire going from the middle lil solder point on that volume to a point on the switch..now, the next part is i have the yellow wire coming from my neck pickup hooked to the OTHER volume pot, and it's black wire (ground) is hooked to the top of THAT volume pot...then, i have a wire going from the volume pot to the switch...but, there seems to be a little ground point on the switch, so i hooked a wire from there to the top of the NECk volume pot..then, i just took the input white wire and hooked that to the middle solder point on the switch...but that buzz is sitll there, and everytime I get closer to the white wire, or touch it, it gets louder...but the buzz goes completley away if like i take that tester, touch one thing to the bridge, and the other to the white output wire....every noise goes away though...hmm, i hope someone can help because this isn't good at all since i need this guitar as my backup for my band..

and juststartingout, im not sure exactly what an OHM meter is, but I have a meter that's got like a positve (red) and negative (black) lil things that you can like check batteries and stuff, but theres a setting for OHM, but there's 3 different kinds..but i'm not sure exactly how to check though


*EDIT*
okay heres what happened..i checked all this out, and realized the humbucker WAS on and the buzz must just be my lights and stuff..so okay it works, but there is still a buzz..but now when i turn the volume down, it all goes away so that wokrs....BUT, my other single coil neck is a lot noiser bc its single coil, but even when I turn my volume DOWN on that pot, there is STILl a really annoying noise! whats going on here?


*edit 2*
thank you to everbody who helped, but I managed to pull through and wired everything up how i wanted and now it works beautifully :-D
 
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