Return of: Guitar Wiring Issues

And that should also be open with infinite resistance when checked against the cable tip. (Unless you have wired up the pickups.)
Actually, you should measure resistance equal to the Volume pot or the parallel combination of the two depending on switch position.
 
So, I took the original pickups that came with the guitar and alligator-clipped them to the pots to complete the circuit:
Pickup_Clamped.jpg
It still sounds awful. It makes a lot of noise by itself. When I touch anything grounded, it goes away.
 
You have 3 wires (2 from one pickup and one from another) going to one pot?

What wiring diagram are you working from?
 
You inspired me to tidy up my own rats' nest.
I should have taken a before pic. It was quite untidy.

Looks like it's basically the same set up as yours.
The tone cap/pot is fed from volume wiper but, other than that, it's pretty much the same.

Not sure if it's any help to you but I notice that my switch ground (black into plastic clip) gets split two ways.
One goes to a single pot case and the other goes to the 1/4" socket.

My bridge wire is top left, going straight to the back of a pot.


IMG.JPG
 
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So, I took the original pickups that came with the guitar and alligator-clipped them to the pots to complete the circuit:
View attachment 104282
It still sounds awful. It makes a lot of noise by itself. When I touch anything grounded, it goes away.

The original pickups look like generic cheap chinese pups. Clipping to them via alligator leads is an invitation to RF interference.

When you're not touching ground it hums and when you touch it it goes away. This is normal. It's why you have a 'string ground'.

With better components, better wiring, and full shielding, it diminishes. But it never goes completely away. EMGs and some other active pups don't need a string ground, but passive systems do.

I don't know what you're aiming for, what level of quiet you expect.
I do know if you would have taken my earlier advice, you'd be done and just rocking it.

But then again, the best way to learn is by direct experience and screwing up a time or two. :D
So have fun with it.

I'm out of this thread, I was trying to help but feel I've just been wasting my time.
 
I'm not promising this will help your situation, but I for one refuse to (try to) solder to the back of a pot under any circumstances. I will find another way. You can try to find ring connectors big enough, but I usually just solder the wire to the washer that was going to go on the shaft already.

But also, the connection to the back of the pots is really just a shield connection. While it might be convenient and it definitely is common, it's not actually best practice to rely on that shield connection to carry your circuit ground. From the point of view of getting the circuit itself to actually work, the important thing is to connect the pickup bottom wires, the bottom lugs of the V pots, and the bottom ends of the T caps to the jack sleeve. We want all of those connections to be solid and reliable, and you're much more likely to achieve that if you use wires or component leads and actual solder lugs.

How you do that is up to you, but maybe have the bottom wire of the pickup and its T cap go to its V pot bottom lug*, then jumper one V bottom lug to the other and stick the jack sleeve wire right there.

Now your circuit works, now connect your shield wires (pot backs, bridge ground...) to the jack sleeve. Now it's as good as it's gonna get.



*by bottom lug I mean the "ground" lug, if you're doing the washer thing, this can be unsoldered from the case and hopefully bent back into place without breaking
 
You inspired me to tidy up my own rats' nest.
I should have taken a before pic. It was quite untidy.

Glad to hear that. At least someone's making progress :thumbs up:

It also looks like the one cap could be shorted against the pot case, but this is really not pretty.

I do have on end of the cap soldered to the pot case. That's how my Mockingbird is wired up:
MockingbirdWiring.jpg

The other wiring info I used was from GuitarElectronics.com:
2 Humbuckers/3-Way Toggle Switch/2 Volumes/2 Tones
(But there they have the cap between the two pots.)

You can try to find ring connectors big enough, but I usually just solder the wire to the washer that was going to go on the shaft already.

I may try that next. It's been slow going because I've been exceptionally busy at work.

For what it's worth, I do appreciate all the responses. I just scarecely have the time to experiment.
 
So I finally got around to making a video showcasing the noise. The video is from my phone, but the audio is what I hear in my headphones. The signal chain is:
Guitar -> Zoom G2.1u -> RME Fireface UCX -> Sound Forge
The preset on my Zoom is a high gain one. I realize the extra distortion will add to the noise, but as I mentioned before, I don't have this issue with my other guitars, even with high gain.

YouTube

(I'm waiting for new humbucker rings which is why I don't have any on.)
 
I really don't know what's going on here.
You should be able to just wire a pickup straight to a 1/4 socket without issues like that ^.

In fact, that's not a bad idea!
They don't need to be in the guitar : A light tap with a paper clip or anything metal will confirm good connection + output.


I'd wire pup 1 straight to 1/4" and test, then the same for pup 2.
If those check out fine, hook them both to your switch and take its output to the 1/4" for testing.
then...well, you get the rest...test a pickup with volume pot, then with gain pot, then the same for the other etc.

Bit of a pain but, I mean, it shouldn't be this hard! :(
I'd get it all on the bench and methodically figure out what's going wrong.
 
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