Helping With Changing The Ammount Of Conductors

[Boinz]

Hey everyone, first time poster here and im recently getting into doing all my own mods and what not to guitars, i can't get enough of it. right now im in a bit of a jam, i decided to play around with this LTD/ESP stock pickup and try to turn it into a 4 conductor so i could coil tap it with a regular 5 way switch, i know the diagram by heart now, and i have spare lead cable to extend from the pup, i just need to know how i go about it with this pup.

These are the cables that read the end of the main lead to the cavity:

Red 2

White (i believe its the main hot lead)

and Bare wire (grounding)

[JohnH]

Will you be replacing the existing grey wire with a 4-conductor one? that is the best thing to do. You need a length of cable with 4 internal wires and the screen. The screen goes to the pickup base, and the 4 wires go one each to each coil end. The coils should not go directly to the base (as one of them does now), otherwise, it will mess up when you do reverse phase options.

You should start with the old grey wire disconnected and removed, and the two wires from each coil exposed. You should be able to seperate the coils, becasue they were made seperately and then two ends soldered together, maybe tucked inside the insulation. Just be very careful as you tease it apart.

this is a good page about the principles:

http://www.1728.com/guitar1a.htm

Heres my write up on some that I did:

http://au.geocities.com/guitarcircuits/fou...rconductor.html

I attached a piece of board to the back as a tag strip to fix my cables to. More recently I did a couple of Gibson Hbs, and just soldered the ends of my 4 conductors to the wires from the coils, insulating with some heat-shrink sleeve.

John

Edited July 21, 2007 by JohnH

[Boinz]

when you mean the grey wire, do you mean the one where at the bottom right of the picture?

edit. also by screen, do you mean the bare cable to normally functions as grounding?

Edited July 21, 2007 by Boinz

[JohnH]

when you mean the grey wire, do you mean the one where at the bottom right of the picture?

edit. also by screen, do you mean the bare cable to normally functions as grounding?

Yes and yes. But if you get a 4 conductor cable, the bare wire will be replaced by all the fine copper bare wires that surround the 4 insulated wires. You twist them together and solder to base of pup, and t ground at the control cavity. That screen or shield is then protecting the 4 main wires from noise, but is not involved in carrying the signal.

John

[Boinz]

ok, gotcha so far, but im still a little stuck. as it shows in the pic, theres 3 cables coming out one coil and 2 out of another. with 1 of the red cables being the a cable that connects the 2. if i cut that red cable (its also called red 1 in the pic) do i have to worry about the end thats coming out of adjustable coil?

[JohnH]

ok, gotcha so far, but im still a little stuck. as it shows in the pic, theres 3 cables coming out one coil and 2 out of another. with 1 of the red cables being the a cable that connects the 2. if i cut that red cable (its also called red 1 in the pic) do i have to worry about the end thats coming out of adjustable coil?

The thick white (which I reckon looks pale grey), how many cables go through it? is it a red, a white, plus the bare? If so, then I reckon the red (ie red2) is connecting to the link between coils (which is red1). If, in the control cavity, you already have bare, red and white, then you can already do fullHb or coil tap. Full Hb will be by connecting bare to ground, and white to hot. For a coil tap, keep those same connections and use a switch to short red to ground. Does that seem consistent with current wiring?

But if you want the whole 4-conductor thing, with parallel, phase etc (and I think its good to have them!) then either seperate red 1 from red 2 (they are probably joined somewheer under the insulation for the upper , adjustable coil), or, a bit safer, just cut red 1 and connect the end going to the lower coil to a new conductor, which, together with the black, will be for the slug coil. So in summary, you would have:

Slug coil - black and lower end of red1

adjustable coil, red 2 and white

bare, going to base only, not to coils

John

[Boinz]

THanx so much john, you've been a real help, anyway, i succeeded in making it a 4 conductor hum, but i think they might be a problem with the regular 5 way (means it has 8 poles to connect the wires to). even after using this schematic

when i put in the neck series, its pretty much dead, unless i turn my 75w amp up to 10. then its audible. so is there a way to just access the neck in series without wanting it in phase?

[JohnH]

THanx so much john, you've been a real help, anyway, i succeeded in making it a 4 conductor hum, but i think they might be a problem with the regular 5 way (means it has 8 poles to connect the wires to). even after using this schematic

when i put in the neck series, its pretty much dead, unless i turn my 75w amp up to 10. then its audible. so is there a way to just access the neck in series without wanting it in phase?

That diagram seems weird to me. I cant see how it makes the series link between the two neck coils in neck-only mode

How about you just make a temporary joint between the two labelled black and white on the neck, just to check that the Hb works?

John

[Boinz]

i can try that, but if that were the case, would i connect that joint to terminal 8 or 7, because the white one goes to 8 and the black one goes to 7.

[JohnH]

i can try that, but if that were the case, would i connect that joint to terminal 8 or 7, because the white one goes to 8 and the black one goes to 7.

The trouble is, I cant see how that switch works, and which lugs are assumed to be the poles

J