Wire Soldering

[alysum]

Hello,

I've installed a kill switch by cutting the wire from the volume to the jack but I'm having troubles getting anything to work, no output at all. I presume it's bad soldering so I need some tips on how wires should be soldered; my wire has the plastic cover then wire then another wire wrapped with plastic. I know that the 'inside' wires must connect, however do the insulation wires need to be connected or not ?

I unsoldered the wires on the switch and held them together with my fingers and still no output I've purchases a multimeter so that it could help me.

cheers,

[GregP]

You installed a kill switch by cutting the wire from the volume to the jack?

I'm no expert, but that doesn't sound right at all. You would generally need to rewire the... er... switch! in order for there to be a kill switch. This wiring should also normally involve sending the entire signal to ground and not just "into thin air".

What wiring scheme does your guitar use (Les Paul or Strat standard wiring, for example), and which instructions did you follow in order to determine which wire you thought you needed to cut? If it didn't use a standard scheme and instructions, could you post up a diagram of what you did?

Greg

[BNichols]

Also some other helpful points of information would be what kind of switch do you have? Is it a SPST or DPST? In other words, does it have 2 lugs coming out of it or 3? You can also try troubleshooting by using the continuity tester on your multimeter. I don't know what kind you have but if you have that capability you can make sure the jack and volume output are connected when the switch is off (not killing).

[alysum]

the thing is even if i tape the cut wire together again it doensnt work...there is continuity according to multimeter but no output, hence my question about how the 2 parts of both wire ends should connect.

maybe i damaged some wires or soldering...but multimeter says its fine...

its the guy at the shop that told me how to do it, its a 3 way switch, same as the LP switch, i will put a wire at each end and middle will be the on. strange tho that tje wire from vol to jack has no earth

[GregP]

What do you mean, the wire from vol to jack has no earth?

My friend, you are presenting an enigma. I'm quite sure you're able to see the big picture, because it's your guitar after all. But I can only speak for myself when I say that you're muddying rather than clarifying. In guitar electronics, everything ultimately functions as single conductors. Even a 4-conductor wire coming out of a humbucker has those 4 conductors treated individually. So referring to a "wire from vol to jack with no earth" sounds like you're expecting it to be a dual conductor.

Ultimately, once the entire path is wired up, you DO have an earth (return) wire at the jack, as well as the hot (?) wire. There has to be, or there won't be a signal.

If you can diagram, even on a piece of paper (scanning it in afterward), what your CURRENT (broken) circuit is, someone here can surely help. If you can get a photograph that clearly shows everything, that might work too; however, my experience is that photographs of guitar electronics cavities are too busy and unclear to be of much help.

-----

In any event, I'm starting to lose the original point which is that you're suspecting the solder joints and you're wanting to attempt a re-solder. I'd wait until you get a proper diagram sorted out (no point re-soldering something you're going to de-solder later!) but in the meantime there are lots of good online resources for soldering. Here's one I found by Googling "soldering for guitar"

http://www.kingbass.com/soldering101.html

Greg

[jnewman]

The way you described the wire, with a wire in the center with insulation around it then another wire around that, I would expect that the center insulated wire is the hot wire and the other wire is the ground wire. You would want to connect the hot wire from the volume to one side of the switch and the hot wire from the jack to the other side of the switch, but then you have to connect the two grounds to each other or you won't get any signal.

[alysum]

Oh I see thanks. Didn't know a wire could have the earth inside too. How come it wont work if earth isnt connected properly ? I thought earth was only optionnal to send away the surcharges.

No doubt I need to learn more about electronics. However would it cause a problem if the hot and earth wires touch each other at the end ?

I need to get it to work how it was before, before connecting it to the kill switch. Then I will describe the circuit

Thanks

[GregP]

surcharges? Isn't that what Ticketmaster dings you with when you order concert tickets?

The wire you described sounds like a simple 2-conductor wire. The outer "bare" wire acts as shielding when it is sent to ground, but the inner wire is the conductor that's expected to be used. You don't really "need" shielded wire, but if you wanted to you could always do exactly that-- send the outer 'shield' wire to ground... You could even just solder them together on both ends, in which case it'll act as though it's just one wire. Really, though, you could also just go down to Radio Shack and get some single-conductor wire. There's nothing inherently wrong with using the shielded stuff (and some people might even CHOOSE to use it!) but it does set you up for problems if you don't know exactly what you're doing with it.

Greg

[jnewman]

Oh I see thanks. Didn't know a wire could have the earth inside too. How come it wont work if earth isnt connected properly ? I thought earth was only optionnal to send away the surcharges.

No doubt I need to learn more about electronics. However would it cause a problem if the hot and earth wires touch each other at the end ?

I need to get it to work how it was before, before connecting it to the kill switch. Then I will describe the circuit

Thanks

The short answer is that you need to have a 0V reference for your signal. You don't have a signal (a voltage or voltage changing over time) in just one wire, you have a voltage between one wire and another. In electronics, voltages are ALWAYS relative to some ground and NEVER absolute (although this is not true in physics). If you don't connect both the ground and the hot, you don't have a signal. You've got to have both of them.

The hot wires from the jack and the rest of the guitar should be connected when the switch is "off" and not connected when the switch is on "kill." You want the ground wires to just be connected to each other. The ground wires can touch the insulation of the hot wires and vice versa, but if the metal of the hot wires connects to the metal of the ground wires, then you've just grounded your signal and you won't get any sound out.

In fact, this is actually the best way to wire a kill switch - so that when the switch is on "kill" it connects hot and ground just before the jack, and when the switch is "off" it doesn't connect anything. This is because the way you're doing it, you disconnect the hot wires, but you have the ground wire still connected at one end to your amp and at the other end to all of your guitar's electronics, which will act like a big antenna and pass noise to your amplifier's ground. I'm not sure how big a problem this would actually be, but it's not ideal.

There are some pretty good books around about wiring up guitars and different ways to do things, you might want to look in to buying one or picking one up from a library. Or even a general basic electronics book, if you're feeling adventurous. You'll learn a lot more from reading an organized presentation of the basics than from asking questions as they come up and getting piecemeal answers.

Edited June 11, 2007 by jnewman

[crafty]

Wow. I thought I'd seen it all!

That "wire" that you cut is actually the cable that sends the "hot" signal to the tip of the output jack using the center conductor and the "ground" or "earth" to the sleeve of the output jack by using that braided jacket you also cut. Even if you tape the wire back together, it still won't work unless the jacket is also resoldered back together and neither the braid or center conductor are touching each other.

Essentially, you fubar'd it up. Go take it to a tech and pay them more money to fix your mess and install the switch properly, then learn about electricity on something a little less valuable.

Best way to wire a kill switch is by using an on-on switch to shunt the hot side to ground, not by trying to cut the circuit. You'll get a nice loud pop when you try to just cut the circuit.

[Geo]

There's still hope for this guy! No need to pay people to fix a wire. Perhaps you could put it back how it was (this may involve buying some shielded cable), take some pics, and we can tell you what to solder where.

For a "kill switch" I would use a single-pole, double-throw ("SPDT") switch (which takes a wire and directs it to one of two other contacts). You can cut any signal wire and install it at the break. Connect the signal "in" to the center lug. One outside lug is "live signal out" (i.e. the other end of the wire you cut), and the other lug should be connected to ground. I believe a LP switch is SPDT.

[alysum]

yeah I'm trying to put it back how it was before. I need to learn how to do all this so I can build my guitar one day

but will it work if you hold 2 wires together with your fingers or not ?

[GregP]

Well, it depends on if you're holding the right 2 wires.

For testing wiring, I've settled for twisting wires together or holding them together with metal alligator clips. You can also use those screw-thingies that look like little plastic thimbles. But the metal of both "halves" need to be making a solid connection. Just touching the end of one up against the end of the other is going to be an intermittent connection at best, and your thumb won't conduct electrons from one to the other.

Use your multimeter to test wires that have been "spliced" together like that.... but ultimately, it's a cleaner job to replace wires rather than splicing them together.

[alysum]

ok thanks, will purchase some of those clips

[alysum]

got it all sorted out ! so it was the earth that was connected to the hot wire that caused the malfunction...