Guitar wiring confusion

P

portugueseninja

New member
I'm having problems with my guitar... there's a hum that goes away whenever I touch something metal on it, so I think that's a grounding problem?

And there's something wrong with the signal, it keeps cutting out.

When I opened it up to have a look, one of the wires is completely loose... but I don't know where it goes! I think there's a soldering iron around the house somewhere so I am willing to try and fix it, but I just don't know how!

You can see the loose wire on the right of the picture. Can you see anything else wrong that would be causing the hum?

https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y59/portugueseninja/IMG_0010.jpg
 
Oh! Well, that was interesting, thanks for that link!

The end of the White wire does connect to the output jack. So does that mean I'll be able to just solder it back on to wherever it needs to be?
 
depending on what type of guitar you have you can download wiring diagrams to show you where every wire goes. Strats are famous for making the hum sometimes sheilding the routed sections for the pickups will stop this and making sure you have a good ground connection. I am at work so I can not look at the pic I will check it out when I get home
Tim
 
Thanks Tim. I'm looking at the diagram on here: http://www.squierguitars.com/pdf/current/Strat/Standard Strat- Service.pdf

It seems to be mostly the same as mine though from what I can tell the wires to the switch are in a different order, but there's still the same number of connections so I presume that's fine.

In the picture, of the black/white wire coming from the output jack, the black wire looks to be soldered to the top of the pot and the white goes in the middle hole thing (lug? I'm not totally sure on the terminology here but hopefully you know what I mean).

So logically... it just needs to go back on there. :rolleyes:
 
Take a magnifying glass and carefully look over the switch. There will be one lug with some solder on it, but no wire. That's where you put the output jack wire. If you have a DVM, you'd have continuity between that lug and the various pickups as you move the selector switch through the positions. It ought to make some sense.
Actually, I look and look at your picture and your link again, and it may come from the middle of the volume control. Again, check for solder but no wire. But if the wire is too short to reach the volume control, it's from the switch. They could have done it either way.
 
I see two places it looks like it may have been.
I'm with ranjam about it probably coming from the switch and it looks like the second lug down has no wire to it.
Another spot that looks like there could be a broken wire nub is the top pot/right lug.
 
Google "Guitar wiring diagrams" and you will find every conceivable wiring scheme known to man.
 
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