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need help wiring 2 lead and 4 lead pickup


MzI

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I am having a bit of trouble wiring my guitars with 2 wire and 4 wire pickups. My arrangement is 2 hum, 1 vol, 1 tone, 3 way, 500k cts pots and .047 cap. I have 2 wire duncan pickups in the neck and 4 wire BL 500 XL in the bridge. Of the two I have wired, I can get sound out of them when plugged in and playing open but as soon as I rest my hand on the bridge or fret a note I get tons of buzz. Any ideas, help, input, etc would be appreciated.

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Sounds like you have a grounding issue. Have you run a ground wire from the bridge? Leads to the output jack back-to-front?

I assume everything else works as expected - volume, tone, 3-way switch.

FWIW, Bil Lawrence 500XL pickup colour codes are Red (hot), Green/White (twist together and insulate), Black/Shield (twist together and ground). SD wiring should pretty much take care of itself if it's only two-wire hookup - one is hot, the other is ground.

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Not easy to see, but:

  • Braid on cable leaving volume pot to output jack may not be soldered to ground.
  • Check wiring on 3-way switch from neck pickup. Can't see if the braid is touching the centre conductor, or has been wired back-to-front.
  • Wire coming from left lug of tone pot appears to be going to case of volume pot. Should go to right lug of vol pot or centre lug(s) of 3-way switch.
  • Check the wiring on your output jack.
  • Check continuity of ground wire between vol pot case and bridge with a multimeter. Check again between vol pot case and output jack sleeve connection. Eyes don't always tell the truth.
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Still reckon you've got a grounding issue somewhere between your output jack and bridge. Eliminating the buzz by touching the output jack should be the same thing as touching the strings. Electrically they're meant to be the same point.

Does your bridge have a lot of heavy black paint that may not allow a good connection to the bridge grounding wire?

Try twisting a piece of wire around the strings and attach the other end of the wire to the shield of the output jack. If the buzz goes away when you touch the strings with this temporary wire installed then your bridge ground wire isn't making proper contact with the bridge/saddles/posts/studs/strings and needs to be checked out.

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