Trussrod Grounding

[gripper]

While showing off the wiring in my Tele-12 to a budding young builder, she asked why I don't run a ground to the trussrod. After a little-too-long thoughtful pause, I decided not to lie and tell her I didn't know of any reason to or not to. Got to tell her something!

Short blondes ROCK!

[Robert_the_damned]

sound like you might have been showing of more than your 12 string.

I've never heard of a grounded truss rod.....I don't think it would do much to be honnest. Grounding the strings matters because they're directly in the magnetic field of the pickups and any EM stuff the strings pick up will go into the pickups. However, the truss rod isn't near the pickups...and so you don't need to ground it at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Robert

[lovekraft]

Right, there's no reason to ground the truss rod, just like there's no reason to ground the strap buttons, since neither has any contact with the electronics.

[JoeAArthur]

Grounding the truss rod would make it microphonic.

[Mike Sulzer]

Right, there's no reason to ground the truss rod, just like there's no reason to ground the strap buttons, since neither has any contact with the electronics.

If you do not ground the strings through the bridge or whereever, they have no contact with the electronics either, but you need to do it, so there has to more to it than that. I will go with Robert's proximity argument, but also repeat what has been said many times: with perfect shielding you would not have to ground any of these things.

[JoeAArthur]

The only purpose of grounding the strings is to use your body as part of the shielding.

Take your hands away from a string grounded but less than 100% shielded guitar and notice the increase in noise. The reason for the lower noise while you are touching the strings is due to your body becoming part of the shielding.

Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly nothing to do with the of proximity of strings to the pickups picking up "the force" or any other electronic reason other than additional shielding provided by your grounded body when you touch the strings. Pickups work due to the disturbance of their magnetic field by the strings - which happens whether the strings are grounded or not.

A guitar with 100% shielded electronics doesn't need a string ground since the additional shielding provided by your body isn't needed. On these guitars, you don't get any pops or clicks from touching or not touching the strings as you do on an unshielded guitar with a string ground (which is due to your body jumping in and out of performing it's additional shield duties) - it's the same as touching your strap buttons.

[Mike Sulzer]

The only purpose of grounding the strings is to use your body as part of the shielding.

Take your hands away from a string grounded but less than 100% shielded guitar and notice the increase in noise. The reason for the lower noise while you are touching the strings is due to your body becoming part of the shielding.

Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly nothing to do with the of proximity of strings to the pickups picking up "the force" or any other electronic reason other than additional shielding provided by your grounded body when you touch the strings. Pickups work due to the disturbance of their magnetic field by the strings - which happens whether the strings are grounded or not.

A guitar with 100% shielded electronics doesn't need a string ground since the additional shielding provided by your body isn't needed. On these guitars, you don't get any pops or clicks from touching or not touching the strings as you do on an unshielded guitar with a string ground (which is due to your body jumping in and out of performing it's additional shield duties) - it's the same as touching your strap buttons.

I agree that your body becomes part of the shield as you say, but there is more to it than that. If you do not touch the strings, your body runs at some other potential than string ground (and it is variable depending upon circumstances), and so it is a source of electric field causing hum. Connecting your body to guitar ground removes that field by putting your body at the same potential as guitar ground. Have you noticed that if the strings are not grounded then if you touch them, the hum might increase? In this case you are putting your body potential on the strings and bridge, and this shows that there is a proximity effect.

[oldrocker]

The main reason you need to ground the bridge to the strings is because your pickups are magnetic coils. Electromagnetism transfers electricity through the magnetic field. So when your pickups sense the string vibration cycles and converts it into electrical signals the strings are in essense connected to the electrical system of your guitar. If your bridge isn't grounded then when you touch the strings and a grounded metel knob on your guitar your body will become the ground of possibly a different potential contributing to noise or somtimes cancelling it. As for the truss rod, that has nothing to do with the electronics of your guitar so don't worry about grounding it.

Edited April 6, 2006 by oldrocker