Strat Wiring - PLEASE HELP !

[auburn-grad]

I have a MIM Standard Strat that I 've installed the Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups in......I am using the CTS 500k pot (volume) and the 2 1meg (tone) pots, as well as the cap and resistor for the trebel bleed circuit.

After installing everything, I tested it and there was a large buzz that would disappear when I touched anything metal on the guitar (claw, strings, output jack, etc.). I removed everything and wired it again...and again I got the same result.

Frustrated, I decided to drop in a factory installed/wired pickup set that I had left-over from a previous strat......I got the same issue.

So, I bought another set of pots, switch, and jack and proceeded to wire it again....this time, I paid extra care to the grounding locations and the soldering.....however, the same problem occurred.

Thoughts: Since the issue occurred with the 'factory wired' pickup set AND my VNs, I thought that it must be related to the ground to the bridge/claw or the ground to the output jack (since thats the only thing that was common between the two sets of pickups). I have 're-grounded' these 2 numerous times with no change......

I cannot seem to locate the problem and I need help......please, anyone ! ?

Background info: The pickups are Fender Vintage Noiseless
1 500k Volume pot, 2 1meg tone pots
Treble bleed circuit
The pickguard is shielded
The wiring diagram that I used is identical to this:

[JimLamme]

From your diagram, I dont see the ground to the jack. But I'm assuming you must have had it wired from the back of the pot(if i remember correctly) to the jack since its pretty hard to miss.

But your story of hum that goes away is similar to mine before I shielded the cavity with shielding paint. I shielded and grounded the cavity and the hum/hiss went away. I use normal non-noiseless pickups though.

See if that will work.

[auburn-grad]

...shielding the cavity would help some, but I think I have a ground problem somewhere that I need to fix.....

When I bought the guitar, it had the stock/crappy MIM pickups and everything worked fine.....I was wondering what could have changed when they were removed and now, nothing that I drop in seems to work.....could something have been 'jarred' loose or could part of the circuit be touching another part and causing the hum......I dont know.

...is there way to test/locate a ground problem using a voltmeter or some other instrument?....if so, can someone give me clear/easy directions....thank you.

I would like to say that I have wired/rewired numerous guitars before and never had this problem......this one has me stumped.

[walterw]

sorry, dude, but hum that goes away when you touch metal is normal for electric guitars. shielding everything in sight will reduce it, but it's generally an unavoidable part of the game unless you go to emg active pickups.

[auburn-grad]

Originally Posted by walterw

sorry, dude, but hum that goes away when you touch metal is normal for electric guitars. shielding everything in sight will reduce it, but it's generally an unavoidable part of the game unless you go to emg active pickups.

With all due respect, I disagree.....

The guitar was silent when it was 'stock'....something was altered when I upgraded the pickups, but I cannot seem to track-it-down.



Any assistance, would be greatly appreciated....anyone?

[leofenderbender]

Originally Posted by auburn-grad

With all due respect, I disagree.....

The guitar was silent when it was 'stock'....something was altered when I upgraded the pickups, but I cannot seem to track-it-down.



Any assistance, would be greatly appreciated....anyone?

Assuming all of your ground connections have good solid solder joints, you might try reversing the leads to the jack - if they are reversed, your guitar will behave as you have described.

[auburn-grad]

Originally Posted by leofenderbender

Assuming all of your ground connections have good solid solder joints, you might try reversing the leads to the jack - if they are reversed, your guitar will behave as you have described.

If the leads on the jack were reversed, would I be getting any sound at all?

[leofenderbender]

Originally Posted by auburn-grad

If the leads on the jack were reversed, would I be getting any sound at all?

That is an incorrect assumption.

[rickc007]

you'd be getting a sound, and a "miserable hum"

did it by mistake once wiring up a whole new setup
didn't think it was polarity dependant, but man
what a hum

I called Acme, and they said without a doubt
reverse the white and black at the jack, and
it became so silent it's scarey

[walterw]

Originally Posted by leofenderbender

Assuming all of your ground connections have good solid solder joints, you might try reversing the leads to the jack - if they are reversed, your guitar will behave as you have described.

er, no. if the output leads were reversed, the metal parts would become "hot", and would buzz more when you touched them.

[walterw]

here's a thought; was there a ground wire going to a screw embedded into the wood somewhere in the cavity? is it still connected? that would be the grounding lead for the shielding paint that fender uses on some of its guitars. if it became disconnected, that shielding paint would become "antenna paint", increasing instead of reducing background noise.

[auburn-grad]

Originally Posted by walterw

here's a thought; was there a ground wire going to a screw embedded into the wood somewhere in the cavity? is it still connected? that would be the grounding lead for the shielding paint that fender uses on some of its guitars. if it became disconnected, that shielding paint would become "antenna paint", increasing instead of reducing background noise.

..Its connected, but its not real tight....its attached to a screw that is screwed into the body...the screw is screwed into a portion of the body where its painted.....would the paint cause the ground of the wire to lose 'effectiveness'.....?

[walterw]

the shielding paint is under the regular paint. you could just try tightening that screw. if that makes no difference, maybe drilling a fresh hole next to that one and cranking the screw in there will do the trick.

[jawjatek]

Got an ohmmeter? Do some quick wiring sanity checks:

Stick a cable in the guitar jack and measure the resistance at the other end between tip and sleeve of the plug. Make sure the volume pot is turned all the way up. Record the reading in all 3 switch positions and post what it reads. It should be close (500k in parallel with 6k ~ 6k) to the readings of each pickup. On mine its 5.8k, 5.9k, 6.0k neck to bridge. Not sure what your pickups read. Now rotate the vol pot all the way down and verify the resistance drops to approx 0 when you do. Now run the vol all the way back up, and measure again while only turning the 2 tone pots, and make sure the reading doesn't change when you do this.

Make sure you soldered the 3rd leg of the vol pot to the case (ground). The black line on the drawing is easy to overlook.

Also use the Ohmmeter to verify the trem spring claw and the case of all 3 pots are shorted to the cable sleeve (ground), i.e., reading the same as touching the probes together, around 0.2 Ohm on my Fluke typically. HTH and good luck.

[Lucidology]

Hummm ... all of a sudden I've been experiencing this type of grounding properly problem with a couple of my guitars ...