I cant figure out my grounding problem!

[Winny Pooh]

Separate the coil tap wires (white & red on most) from the grounds, tape them up & connect the bridge ground to the back of any pots and then those to the ground on the output jack.

[iampoor]

Originally Posted by Winny Pooh

Separate the coil tap wires (white & red on most) from the grounds, tape them up & connect the bridge ground to the back of any pots and then those to the ground on the output jack.

Thanks for pointing out my typo there, I actually meant both grounds I have soldered together (from the coils)

I have the grounds all soldered together on the output jack because I dont have any pots in the guitar...

[Winny Pooh]

Odd, check that the ground from the pickup is indeed the ground, that the bridge is attached to the ground and actually conducts to the strings with a multimeter if possible.

[pultech]

Both coil grounds?

There should only be one, a drain wire (braided shield) for the shield.

You should have a + and a - which goes to ground (back of the volume pot) in standard guitar's unbalanced wiring scheme.

If the hum level gets louder when you touch your strings, the guitar's + is making some sort of contact with the ground/shielding system of the circuit.

Whether or not it is a miswiring or a capacitive short I can't hazzard a guess without seeing a clear photograph or having the guitar at hand.

[iampoor]

Originally Posted by Winny Pooh

Odd, check that the ground from the pickup is indeed the ground, that the bridge is attached to the ground and actually conducts to the strings with a multimeter if possible.

I checked it, and it is. It conducts a well.

Whenever I touch the tip of the guitar jack the hum becomes extremly loud (Without touching ground). Would this indicate a capacative short?

[John Eppstein]

Make sure you don't have hot and ground reversed at the jack in the guitar.

[iampoor]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

Make sure you don't have hot and ground reversed at the jack in the guitar.

Thanks. I tried reversing them and have the same issue. Whenever I touch one of the pickup wires to the tip of an instrument cable it hums like crazy. When I attack both (Both ways) it still hums but quite abit less. Capacative short?

[Riku]

Humbuckers either have 3 or 5 cables coming out of them. There will only ever be 1 ground and this will usually be a bare braided wire.
Go to Seymour Duncan or Dimarzio and look at their wiring schematics. They may use a different colour system to your pick up, but you can figure it out from there.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by iampoor

Thanks. I tried reversing them and have the same issue. Whenever I touch one of the pickup wires to the tip of an instrument cable it hums like crazy. When I attack both (Both ways) it still hums but quite abit less. Capacative short?

Do you have anything connected to ground?

What kind of pickup is it? How many conductors does the pickup cable have?

Whatever it is, it is almost certainly not a short*. It could be an open.

I am trying to wire a single humbucker to an output jack. I have both coil grounds and the bridge ground soldered together (Going to the sleeve). Then I have the single hot wire (Going to the Tip of the plug)

This doesn't make sense to me. One hot lead and two ground leads plus shield ain't right.

A simple Gibson style cable will have a hot and a shield, which is ground.

Some pickups will have two leads and the shield (ground, so you can wire a phase switch in a two pickup setup. In your case you would ground one of those wires and connect the other to tip.

Other pickups have a shield (ground) and four wires, two from each coil, which allows you to do series/parallel switching and/or reversing the phase of one coil as well as single coil/humbucker switching.

The only reason I can think of for having a shield and 3 wires would be if the pickup was wired as a series humbucker with an extra lead connected between the coils to allow you to short it out and get a humbucker/single coil switch without having the series/parallel option.

Do you have an ohm meter?


* - shorts tend to cause the instrument to make no noise at all.

[pultech]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

Do you have anything connected to ground?

What kind of pickup is it? How many conductors does the pickup cable have?

Whatever it is, it is almost certainly not a short*. It could be an open.



This doesn't make sense to me. One hot lead and two ground leads plus shield ain't right.

A simple Gibson style cable will have a hot and a shield, which is ground.

Some pickups will have two leads and the shield (ground, so you can wire a phase switch in a two pickup setup. In your case you would ground one of those wires and connect the other to tip.

Other pickups have a shield (ground) and four wires, two from each coil, which allows you to do series/parallel switching and/or reversing the phase of one coil as well as single coil/humbucker switching.

The only reason I can think of for having a shield and 3 wires would be if the pickup was wired as a series humbucker with an extra lead connected between the coils to allow you to short it out and get a humbucker/single coil switch without having the series/parallel option.

Do you have an ohm meter?


* - shorts tend to cause the instrument to make no noise at all.

John,
That last quote confused me too, until I realized he hopefully means both P'up grounds and the lead from the bridge ground are all tacked together and then soldered to the shield lug of the jack.

Are there no potentiometers in this guitar?

Also, if you PM me I will give you my e-mail and you can send me a photo of what you have there.

This should make it a snap to walk you through your setup.

I also agree with John that if all else is well and you have bad hum, you probably have an open (broken coil wire) in your pickup.

Let me know if you want to go the photo route,

John

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by pultech

John,
That last quote confused me too, until I realized he hopefully means both P'up grounds and the lead from the bridge ground are all tacked together and then soldered to the shield lug of the jack.

Are there no potentiometers in this guitar?

Also, if you PM me I will give you my e-mail and you can send me a photo of what you have there.

This should make it a snap to walk you through your setup.

I also agree with John that if all else is well and you have bad hum, you probably have an open (broken coil wire) in your pickup.

Let me know if you want to go the photo route,

John

It would appear that there are no potentiometers in this guitar. Not unheard of, one of my guitars is set up that way. I do, however, have an on-off switch to short the output when the guitar is not in use.

I'm still quite confused by his description of what he's doing and I'm still not totally convinced that he isn't confusing the ground and hot lugs on the output jack.

If he uploads a photo and a drawn-out diagram of what he's doing (with wires labelled by color) it would help. It would also be useful to know what make and model pickup he has.

TO THE OP: If you upload pictures, please make certain they are at 72 dpi so they display properly and don't blow out the screen width on the thread page. Please? (You upload pictures using the little paperclip icon in the toolbar at the top of the posting window.)

[iampoor]

Sorry for the delayed response. The guitar has no Pots, jut a pickup and an output jack. What I was trying to originally say is, I removed the jack and intentionally wired it the right way and wrong way (Hot and ground reversed) to see if the hum would go away, and it did not. I have an ohm meter as well.

The pickup is a (Bill and Becky) Bill Lawrence L-500xl

I only have my phone camera, and it is not taking good pics, so I attached a wiring diagram, if you still would like a picture, I can upload one of the crappy ones, but i figured this diagram would be much easier to read

White Wire (Grey in diagram) -- Hot

Black/Blue Wires -- Ground
Red/Green- coil tap, tied together.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by iampoor

Sorry for the delayed response. The guitar has no Pots, jut a pickup and an output jack. What I was trying to originally say is, I removed the jack and intentionally wired it the right way and wrong way (Hot and ground reversed) to see if the hum would go away, and it did not. I have an ohm meter as well.

The pickup is a (Bill and Becky) Bill Lawrence L-500xl


I only have my phone camera, and it is not taking good pics, so I attached a wiring diagram, if you still would like a picture, I can upload one of the crappy ones, but i figured this diagram would be much easier to read

White Wire (Grey in diagram) -- Hot

Black/Blue Wires -- Ground
Red/Green- coil tap, tied together.

And I still can't tell if you have hot and ground reversed. I'm also not certain how the pickup should be wired because you still haven't told us what kind it is and no two companies have exactly the same color coding.

If you have a meter, measure the resistance between the hot wire and the ground wire.

And PLEASE tell me what kind of pickup it is so I can look up the correct diagram.(EDIT - Sorry, missed where you said it was a Lawrence.)


Right now I'm suspecting that you have something screwed up in the coil wiring if one of the coils itself isn't open.

Also, how good are you at soldering? a cold solder joint could easily be causing the problem.

And yes, please do upload the crappy pictures, both of the wires on the jack and the wires coming out of the pickup.

[e3p0]

For Bill Lawrence L500xl:

Red--------------------Output
Green and White---solder together and tape or heat shrink
Black and Bare------Ground

Bill and Becky may be different

It seems you have some wires crossed (your pickup not you) and have it tapped.

Can you "scratch" the rails with a screwdriver or alan wrench or something while it is plugged in to verify you don't simply have a "tapped" coil/ single coil tone?

If so, try switching your white and red wires.
-e