Few Basic Electronics Questions

[Vairish]

Hey guys, Ive been a long time reader of this forum and i'm now starting to do some work of my own and I have a few questions so I thought I should finally register

Anyways, im getting ready to do some pickup wiring for the first time. I have experience with soldering but not with electronics so some of these questions may seem stupid so please be gentle with me!

This is going to be a H/H configuration coil tapped by a 5-way toggle, since I dont understand electronic diagrams yet can I just visually follow the wiring pattern on another one of my guitars with the same configuration? Is there anything I should watch out for, anything that might be different? Anyone any good links about wiring diagrams?

If I can follow the wiring pattern of one of my guitars I'll need to Identify which wire is the neck pickup and which is the bridge pickup. Easiest way I can see if by identifying which pickup is wired to the first tab on the selector switch (the side closest to the neck). I'm presuming its the bridge but I want to make sure.

What wattage soldering iron should I use for this? I want to be able to melt the solder but not damage the cable.

Thanks for your help guys

Edited February 7, 2007 by Vairish

[jnewman]

www.seymourduncan.com has a PILE of pickup wiring diagrams, although the color codes for the pickups may be different.

Some humbuckers can't be coil tapped - the ones you want to use must have at least three wires (ground, half, full), many tappable pups have four (first coil ground, first coil hot, second coil ground, second coil hot) which also allows you to put the individual coils in parallel if you want.

You can also follow one of your other guitars if you want. That works fine. I'm not sure the details of the individual switches you'll be using, so I can't tell you exactly how to hook them up.

You can do the soldering with a soldering iron between 15-50 watts, just don't use one of the 135 watt solder gun pipe soldering tools . I use a variable-temperature 35W iron.

Edited February 8, 2007 by jnewman