Trouble rewiring guitar ... no sound... troubleshooting

[French Fry]

So I'm trying to rewire my guitar, as bare bones as it gets.
2 humbuckers, 3 position toggle, master volume, master tone.

I've wired it twice from scratch now and both times, i get no sound at all when I plug it in. No hum, no sound, nothing.

I've doublechecked everything I can see. I "think" my soldering is ok (nothing is loose), but here are a bunch of pics so if anyone sees anything blatantly wrong, lemme know please!

I do have a multimeter, but I'm not real good with electricity so I'm not quite sure how to use it ...

I sure do appreciate any help someone could provide. If there are other pics I should provide, lemme know

[madsr]

I'm used to the white wires being hot.. and black being grounds.. it looks like you have soldered the hot wires as grounds(negative) and the ground wires where the hot should be.. but I could be totally wrong also as I'm used to working with single coils.

[French Fry]

I used black wires for hot because that's what the gibson pickups used.
But then I brain cramped and kept using black for grounds too, so not real useful on the color scheme...

[69strat]

One or both of the pots may be grounding to the shielded paint in the cavity. Try unscrewing them, and test with the amp on. Move the parts around and see if you get any sound. Good luck.

[K-man]

Did you check that you have the output jack wired correctly?

Also, it looks like the pickup cavity may have shielding paint. Make sure the contacts for the switch aren't touching it (it looks pretty close from the pictures). Use electrician's tape if you have to.

[Jim Collins]

I can't tell from the picture, but your switch may be wired incorrectly.

Not only that, you have way too much of the pickup wires left untrimmed. There is so much braided shield between the volume pot and the switch that, when you close up, that braided shield could contact any number of things, and short out.

Does that switch actually have five lugs, with four on one side, and one, fat one on the other? If that describes the switch, then it is wired incorrectly.

[French Fry]

Thanks guys!
Shielding paint - yes one of the connections on the toggle switch touches the edge of the cavity. I think they only way around that will be electrical tape, due to the shape of the switch and the cavity.

Switch wired incorrectly - I don't know. It's got 4 small connections on one side, and a fatty on the other. I can appreciate that I may have wired it incorrectly, but can someone tell me what the correct way would be? I wired each pickup lead to one side of the switch, looping through both of the small connectors there.

Output jack - I do think i have it wired correctly, but then again, what do I know. I'm using a shielded wire for that one, and using the shielding as the ground.

Braided pickup wire - I'd really like to keep that slack in case I move the pickups to another guitar, or in case I keep screwing up. I'd hate to cut them to length and then screw up again. What are my options here? I'm ok with wrapping them up completely in electrical tape.

I'll futz around in there and follow up on some of these points...

[Jim Collins]

The switch is wired incorrectly. First, that fat lug -- the only lug on one side, which is currently connected to the volume pot -- should be connected to ground. This lug serves only one purpose, which is to ground the switch, so that it does not contribute to noise.

Now for the four lugs on the other side. Take a look at your diagram. It actually shows four lugs on one side. The middle two lugs are bent together, and a lead goes from those two lugs to the appropriate lead on the volume pot. That's it.

[French Fry]

Thanks Jim!

That would certainly explain it.

[blueguitar]

Man, all I can say is great pictures! Pictures are truly worth a thousand words and it was easy to see that you were using the switches ground lug like it was a hot out. If others would post pics like these a lot more problems would get solved faster and with less confusion.

You're playing now aren't you?

[French Fry]

Ok well, looks like my mistake with the switch is not the only problem.

I did fix that issue with the switch I think, but I'm still getting no sound, so no, I'm still not playing with this one yet ...

BUT THERE IS SOME IMPROVEMENT!!! I HAVE HUM!!! Ok, just a little hum, that goes away as soon as I touch any metal part. bridge, string, tone pot, volume pot, pickup ground braid, pickup cover etc ... The hum goes away as soon as I touch anything ... and it's a faint hum, not like touching the end of the patch cable or anything like that.

Here are some more pics, does anyone see anything else that could be wrong? Sorry about the glare, my flash makes it really hard to get good pics.

I've been staring at all this for too long. I'm learning ... but I think i'm learning that I don't want to do this again ... ever. well, this year at least.

OUTPUT JACK: Ground is on the left, hot is on the right.




Tone Pot: lead from volume pot is on the bottom, ground is on the middle lug there's a capacitor that is wired in where it grounds on the volume. Visible in a later pic.




SWITCH: pickup leads are on outside lugs, lead to volume pot is in the middle, with the two lugs bent together. Nothing is touching the shielding paint.




Volume Pot:
top lug - ground wire from tone pot with capacitor spliced in. lug is bent up to touch metal casing and all is soldered together.
Middle lug: lead out to output jack. The shielding on this wire is grounded to the casing on the volume pot.
bottom lug: lead wire from switch and lead wire out to the tone pot are both soldered here.

Casing: all grounds are soldered here. Both pickups, tone, out to bridge, and output jack.




The big picture:

[Jim Collins]

There is significant chance for shorting, here, especially with the way your tone control is wired. Wire it this way, instead.

Remove the tone pot from the volume control. Bend that rightmost lug of the volume control over, so that it touches the volume pot casing. Solder this.

Remove the lead from the middle lug of the tone pot. Attach one end of the capacitor to the middle lug of the tone pot, and the other end of the cap to the casing of the tone pot. (This is the same as you had it, before, you've just eliminated some change for shorting.)

You need to connect the tone pot casing to the volume pot casing. The pot casings must be grounded. The shielding paint isn't good enough for this. Just attach a wire between the pot casings.

You also have to connect the ground lug of the switch. In my previous post, I dont you this has to be connected to ground, to avoid noise. Connect it to the volume pot casing.

Edit -- I have to make sure I'm clear, here. You have one lead that goes from the left lug of the volume pot (as the lugs are facing you) to the right lug of the tone pot. Leave this lead in place. Remove the lead/cap between the volume pot and tone pot. Bend the right lug of the volume pot over so it touches the casing, and solder this. Put the cap between the middle lug of the tone pot and the tone pot casing. Connect all tone pot casings and the ground lug of the switch.

[French Fry]

Thanks Jim, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me on this.

If I understand what you're saying, there are 2 changes you're asking me to do right?

1. Ground the switch to the volume pot using the switch ground lug. (the fat one on the other side of the switch that currently isn't connected to anything.)

2. put cap between middle lug of tone pot and it's casing, then ground the tone pot casing to the volume casing. Like you said, essentially accomplishing the same thing that's there, just reducing the chance of shortage.

I guess i'm not clear on how these changes would solve the no sound problem, but I'll give it a shot! I'm conducting all my tests with the cover off, and nothing seems to be touching things it's not supposed to.

(EDIT: as it is, the only wires that I think touch themselves are the pickup braids and I'm keeping those well away from the other wiring.)

[French Fry]

Ok, so I implemented the changes you suggested as above, but still no sound.
I'm guessing maybe there is a bad connection somewhere? Is there a simple way to use a multimeter to verify where the signal could be interrupted?

I can post more pics if you think it would help, or just confirm latest setup.

[Jim Collins]

Set your multimeter to the DC resistance scale that measures less than 20K ohms. Then, put one probe on one of the lugs of the switch to which a pickup's hot lead is connected. Put the other probe on the volume pot casing, and see if you get a reading. Perform the same test on the other lug of the switch. This will let us know if the pickups are good.

Did you bend over the rightmost lug on the volume pot (as the lugs are pointing toward you), so that it touches the pot casing? Did you solder that connection? Thus lug must go to ground.