A few questions on wiring/ soldering RE replacing pots and pickup.....

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Elapses

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Hey all, I was overwhelmed by the positive replies I got from my question about replacing pickups on my cheapo Epi Les Paul II, I have only recently joined and have had negative experiences with forums in the past, so it was real nice to hear such positive and constructive advice!!

So I am going to try and replace the pick ups and pots myself, and have bought some Japanese A500K pots to replace the Chinese B500's in there atm, and have my Seymour Duncan pick ups ready to go... My plan was to copy the existing wiring configuration in the Epi... But when I opened everything up, found the wiring on the existing pickups to be completely different to the new ones (no-surprise I guess).

So heres how it looks:

Wire running from current bridge pick up has a white and an unsheilded wire inside... both are attached to the capacitor on the toggle switch (to choose which pickup is used)...
The wire running from the new Seymour Duncan PU has a green, a white, a black, a red and an unshielded wire coming from it...

Well, thats thrown me right off... I'm sitting with a guitar half pulled apart on my lap, a soldering iron and not a clue what to do...
I'm the most technically naive person to grace the world of electronics, I have tried guitarelectronics.com, and it still doesnt make any sense.. I have had a few overly technical explinations from various retail store clerks, but the info is all very generalised and no-one has mentioned different wires...

So I'm throwing this one out there to the pro's and technically minded musos of the world - I need your help!

Much love!!

Elapses.
 
Elapses said:
Hey all, I was overwhelmed by the positive replies I got from my question about replacing pickups on my cheapo Epi Les Paul II, I have only recently joined and have had negative experiences with forums in the past, so it was real nice to hear such positive and constructive advice!!

So I am going to try and replace the pick ups and pots myself, and have bought some Japanese A500K pots to replace the Chinese B500's in there atm, and have my Seymour Duncan pick ups ready to go... My plan was to copy the existing wiring configuration in the Epi... But when I opened everything up, found the wiring on the existing pickups to be completely different to the new ones (no-surprise I guess).

So heres how it looks:

Wire running from current bridge pick up has a white and an unsheilded wire inside... both are attached to the capacitor on the toggle switch (to choose which pickup is used)...
The wire running from the new Seymour Duncan PU has a green, a white, a black, a red and an unshielded wire coming from it...

Well, thats thrown me right off... I'm sitting with a guitar half pulled apart on my lap, a soldering iron and not a clue what to do...
I'm the most technically naive person to grace the world of electronics, I have tried guitarelectronics.com, and it still doesnt make any sense.. I have had a few overly technical explinations from various retail store clerks, but the info is all very generalised and no-one has mentioned different wires...

So I'm throwing this one out there to the pro's and technically minded musos of the world - I need your help!

Much love!!

Elapses.
Click to expand...


This is all in the little wiring diagram that came with the new pickups.

Solder the red and white together, and shrink wrap the bare ends. The green wire and the bare wire go to ground, and the black wire is your hot wire. You can only count on that color code with Seymour Duncans, as other manufacturers use different codes.

For your wiring, use one of the diagrams from Seymour Duncan's website, probably THIS ONE.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Hey thanks Light, I have seen this diagram, but was confused by the fact that when I opened it up, everything was wired differently (as in nothing soldered to the round area on the bottom of the pots). I will give it a shot, as shown on this diagram, was just confused by the existing wiring...

Cheers!
 
After some research I found a wiring diagram that worked for my set up! I bought a new SD 59' neck pickup and bought the good Dimazio pots. Spent half the day trying to figure it all out, its complicated at first, but its all just following the currant path, and grounding everything in essence!
Only problem is the volume pot doesnt seem to have any effect... But the PU's sound freakin sweet! I can't actually believe I did it!!!

Really awesome site I recommend to anyone who is as technically inadequate as me: www.guitarelectronics.com!!!
 
It sounds like that volume pot is somehow out of the circuit. You might check to make sure that none of the wires connected to that pot are touching each other; that would do it.
 
I think its only grounding wires that are toughing eachother... should that matter? All wires from the PU's are isolated...?
 
The most likely thing is that you didn't ground your volume pot correctly.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Its grounded to the sleeve.. same as the tone pot.. I will check all wires again tomorrow... Cheers though!
 
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