help with wiring (eliminating hum)

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jertapper

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I rewired my guitar using a schematic off of the seymour duncan website.

Now I have a slight hum which goes away when I touch the jack plate or the metal of the 1/4" jack itself.

I am guessing this is a grounding issue. Any tips on where to begin? I was going to resolder everything but otherwise it all seems to work well.

This is the diagram I used.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/2hum_vol_5way-w-split.html

thanks
 
Does it go away when you touch any other metal part(s) of the guitar?
 
A slight hum, or a BIG hum.


The question I'm getting at is, did you ground to the bridge of the guitar. I'm assuming yes, but it never hurts to make sure.


The second question is, did you shield the cavity? If not, you really probably should. It can help a lot.


Beyond that, I really prefer to bring all of my grounds to the same common point. This can be the back of a pot (which works just fine), or you could use a ground lug inside the guitar (which is what I like to do). Either way, what ever works for you.




Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
what does your ground circuit look like

all the grounds should be tied to a central point, not daisy chained (in series) at all

edit: oops, i guess we posted together
 
I can be touching the strings and it will still be humming. It is only slight.
pickguard is totally covered in foil tape. the entire cavity is covered in foil tape. a wire runs from by claw to the cavity and is grounded to the sheilding. all other grounds in that diagram come together and connect to a ring around my volume pot sandwiched between the pot and the pickguard sheilding. I thought I had done this right...so I'm not sure what to do to eliminate this other than resolder everything and make sure all bare wires are covered with electrical tape.
thanks for any help guys.
 
jertapper said:
I can be touching the strings and it will still be humming. It is only slight.
pickguard is totally covered in foil tape. the entire cavity is covered in foil tape. a wire runs from by claw to the cavity and is grounded to the sheilding. all other grounds in that diagram come together and connect to a ring around my volume pot sandwiched between the pot and the pickguard sheilding. I thought I had done this right...so I'm not sure what to do to eliminate this other than resolder everything and make sure all bare wires are covered with electrical tape.
thanks for any help guys.
Click to expand...

Insulating wires with tape won't help unless you've got wires shorting together, and that would probably cause more probs than a slight hum. Did the hum appear only after your rewiring job? What change(s) did you make?
 
The bridge ground (the one to the claw) needs to go to the same point as the rest of the grounds (on the back of a pot, presumably). I don't know for certain that will help, but I'm betting it will.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
ggunn said:
Insulating wires with tape won't help unless you've got wires shorting together, and that would probably cause more probs than a slight hum. Did the hum appear only after your rewiring job? What change(s) did you make?
Click to expand...

I was trying to do some recording the other day and my friend who is a much more experienced guitarist didn't like the sound and he had me try his guitar. the difference was night and day. His had more bass and mine had too much treble and was fuzzy.

So I felt that the difference between the two guitars shouldn't have been so pronounced. I thought my wiring job was jacked...causing this severe tone loss. I wasn't all that confident in it since I rigged it up without a schematic but it seemed to work fine. Only by A/B'ing the two guitar sounds did I notice the difference.

His pickups are carvin ones similar to mine. Mine are seymour duncan. sh-6 in the bridge '59 in the neck. I had another pickup in there but don't need it and yanked it based on not having a schematic for that setup and never using it. So I used the exact setup I referenced in my other post hoping I would have no wiring issues.

Now, it sounds better, except for this hum.

The trem/bridge is connected by a wire soldered to the spring claw to the internal shielding...so that should be grounded, but it isn't connected to the same ring on the volume pot that everything else is connected to. I could try to join those up and see if it changes anything. I just don't see how there could be a ground loop in this configuration, but my electrical skills are quite limited.
 
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