Need Some Wiring Help

[daveb]

Having some trouble installing pickups. The pickups are seymour duncan's sh-4 humbucker in the bridge, ssl-1 vintage staggered in the mid position, and a ssl-4 quarter pounder in the neck. I am using a 5-way mega switch from Stewart Macdonald. I have 3 250 pots 1 for volume 1 for tone with a .020 capicitor, and 1 for a device that stewart macdonald sells called "Black Ice" wich is a passive overdrive curcuit. I wired everything to the schematic on stewart macdonalds reference page for the black ice. I used the schematic labeled : Master Volume. Master Tone, & Black Ice. Everything works except the "black Ice". Maybe I should have used the schematic from Stew. Mac. labeled Typical Fender Stratocaster Wiring: using a 5 way switch. Could someone a little more knowledgeable please take a look at these 2 schematics and advise? Stew macs page is at http://www.stewmac.com/ the schematics are tabbed as instructions on this page: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p..._overdrive.html

The pup manufacturer, the mega switch manufacturer, Black Ice, all have different variations of schematic. Makes things very difficult!

Thanks in Advance for the help

[crafty]

Try reversing the wires on the Black Ice.

[daveb]

Try reversing the wires on the Black Ice.

Thanks for replying, I will give it a try tonight.

[daveb]

Tried switching the wires and it didnt work. Wonder if maybe the pot is bad

[JoeAArthur]

The diagrams do not show how the back of the pot is grounded. On Teles it is usually not a problem because grounding is through the control plate and is usually pretty good.

Sometimes on Strats the grounding of the pots is not so good. It might help to run a separate ground wire from the back of the volume pot to the back of the pot you have the black ice wired to to insure a proper ground.

[daveb]

The diagrams do not show how the back of the pot is grounded. On Teles it is usually not a problem because grounding is through the control plate and is usually pretty good.

Sometimes on Strats the grounding of the pots is not so good. It might help to run a separate ground wire from the back of the volume pot to the back of the pot you have the black ice wired to to insure a proper ground.

Did that, wired a ground across both tone pots and volume pot. Do you think it would matter if I ran a seperate wire to just that pot. Right now I am ground wired from Volume pot to Black Ice Pot to Tone pot and the tone works fine. Thanks answering

[JoeAArthur]

Did that, wired a ground across both tone pots and volume pot. Do you think it would matter if I ran a seperate wire to just that pot. Right now I am ground wired from Volume pot to Black Ice Pot to Tone pot and the tone works fine. Thanks answering

No, that should take care of grounding. The only things that are left is either a bad pot or a bad black ice module. You might connect the black ice by itself across the outside lugs of the volume pot to see if you get any effect at all.

If you have a meter, you might also check the connection wire - the one from the volume control to the black ice pot.

Good luck!

[Southpa]

The Black Ice is only effective under specific conditions. It has to be hooked into a 250K pot (you've done that) and most important, can only be driven by high output (10Kohm +) pickups. I got it to work very well in one of my guitars equipped with Golden Age overwound HB's rated at 12 Kohm.

Your sh-4 (16.4) and ssl-4 (13.3) are strong enough but not the ssl-1 (6.5). I don't know what kind of results you would get with combinations of those pickups. I used the Gibson LP schematic for the black ice.

Edited June 8, 2006 by Southpa