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Weak bridge PUP in my C-7


Jupiter

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Hey guys!

Fairly recently, i had a my Schecter C-7 rewired after doing some mods to it. Whenever i tryed the guitar again, it seemed like the bridge pickup was only running at about 75% of the power it should have... The bridge humbucker is a Duncan Design, based on the JB model, so i know the PUP should be hotter than what it is right now. Is it possible the guy did the wiring wrong, and that's why i'm not getting enough output? The neck PUP doesn't seem to be suffering from this problem. I've raised the bridge pickup to see if that would help with the output, and it didn't really do much.

The guitar has two humbuckers wired to a three-way toggle switch, with position one being the bridge, two being bridge and neck, and three being the neck PUP. Could someone explain to me how to check and see if it is wired up properly? I've done next to nothing as far as wiring work goes, so please explain in moron terms :D !

Please help!!!!

Ben

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if it is a 4 lead humbucker then the two wires that connect the coils should be soldered together.alot of humbuckers are this way now so that you can use it as a single coil with a coil tap switch.in other words,if these 2 wires are not soldered to each other then you will only be using one side of it.

if it is only a 2 wire humbucker then make sure all your connections are soldered correctly.especially check the ground to the bridge as this one is commonly cold soldered(the trem claw is so big that the soldering iron has a hard time getting it hot enough for the solder to stick to.)

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Wes, i really appreciate the help, but i unfortunately don't understand a word of it :D ! Like i said, i've done next to zero electronics work, but i'd really like to learn.

My guitar doesn't have a trem... it has a fixed bridge. There's a little wire that runs from the electronics cavity and comes out right under the bridge. I put the wire through the hole and positioned it so that a piece of the wire touches the metal on the underside of the bridge. If this somehow slipped loose, would it be causing the problems i'm having?

Also, please re-explain all the stuff you just tryed to tell me.

Please explain this in Jughead terms!

Thanks,

Ben

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:D Ben,

If that wire slips away from contacting the bridge your electronics will basically loose a good portion of the ground and everything will either remain silent or sound miserable.

Some humbucking pickups have 4 wires coming out of them (usually bundled together in a single sleeve). Others only have 2 wires coming out which are soldered to the electronics.

The wires are actualy nothing more than the oppisite ends of the copper wire rapped around the bobbins on the pickup. In the case of a humbucker that has 4 wires coming out, it is really more like two single coil pickups stuck together (you can split coil wire these), where a Humbucker that has only 2 wires coming out you would find a bridge (connection) between the two different coils making them act like one if you took it apart. In that case either A would be connected to C in the pickup, or B would be connected to D (using the diagram below)

Here is a chart that shows what color wires are connected to the ends of each of the coils on 4-wire humbuckers

wires.jpg

Your Duncan Designed pickup will follow the same color code as the Seymour Duncan line across the bottom.

What Wes was telling you is that it sounds like the tech wired your humbucker in using only two wires from the same coil instead of splicing the bridge together. That would turn your humbucker into a single coil pickup which is only using one of the bobbins instead of both.

To figure out if he did what you need to do is open up the electronics cavity and find the main bundle of wire coming from your bridge pickup and look to see that all 4 wires are soldered on to the pots/switch.

If they are not don't freak out since it is possible what has happened is he tried to make it a solid humbucker (using both coils at once) just like a two wire one is and messed up a little thus using only one of the coils instead of both.

If the red and white wires are soldered to each other and taped off so that they do not make contact with anything else then the pickup has been wired like a 2 wire humbucker and is ok as long as the other two wires are soldered to the switch (should be the black one) and the pot (should be the green one).

Likewise since were dealing with a loop here if the black and green wires have been soldered together and taped up so they don't make contact with anything else you will see the red wire soldered to either the switch or pot and the white wire soldered to the oppisite part.

If it is wired where all 4 wires are connected to the switch and pots then we need to know which wires are going to what contact points to help figure out your problem.

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i just found the c-7 with those duncan desighn pickups.they are 4 wire pickups.go here ,go to past models,go to c series,then go to c7 plus,and click on where it says schematics.(just to the left of the picture of the guitar.)don't worry that the picture of the pickups looks different,it still applies.make sure your wiring looks just like that.by the way it's the same wiring schematic as the last one i gave you. :D

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Hello again!

Thanks for all the replies, i was away form the board for a few days, so i didn't respond.

Anyway, it's kind of hard to tell exactly what's going on back there, as the guy used copius amounts of some kind of strange black stuff to 'solder' the wires into place. He also used a heat shrink wrap tubey-thing on the ends of one of the wires, so i can't tell what colour it is.

What i'd really like to do is somehow remove the wierd black stuff, and completely redo the wiring myself with my soldering iron. I'd just like to have done it myself, so i'll know how to do it in the future, you know? It's not all that hard to do, is it?

Please give me some advice!

Ben

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Alrighty, well, i un-soldered everything last night. That dip-it stuff tore right off, you were right.

Okay, i had a really cool idea... is there any way i could wire position 3 of the toggle switch as a kill switch, position 2 as my neck pickup, and position 1 as my bridge? I never use the neck+bridge combo. Would i just need to wire my bridge to the first post on my toggle, neck on post two, and leave the third empty? In the diagram, it shows that i need to wire post two to the tone control, though. Could i wire post three to the tone control instead? Or just solder it to post 2 with my neck pickup?

Please help soon!!!!!!

Thanks,

Ben

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Update!

Well, i just gone done attempting to resolder everything... i tried the kill switch idea, it didn't really work. If anyone knows how to make it work, though, please let me know.

Here's my current situation:

-Neck pickup sounds good.

-Bridge pickup still sounds weak... - neck+bridge combo works.

- Tone knob doesn't work at all!!!

- Volume knob works, but it's backwards! When i turn the volume knob clockwise, the volume goes down, instead of up.

Please offer some advice!!!

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