Unrealize Posted January 7, 2013 Report Share Posted January 7, 2013 Hey! Been a very long time since I have been posting anything here. Some years ago I did a few guitars, but I had to move to another house that was in pretty bad condition. Finally a little while ago I got my basement set up so that I could finally get back to building guitars again, and now I'm kinda in the finishing phase of the first one... But I have some trouble... I have been using this wire diagram, but I'm using an EMG-81 instead of Seymore Duncan. The older kind of EMG without the 'plug', just red wire and a white one with braiding. This is what I'm left with: I have a stereo output Jack. When I push the Jack in all the way I have no sound. When it's just 'half way' (that is, to the first point where the jack get 'stuck') I have sound. The volume potmeter doesn't work. I'm not good with electronics unfortunately. I have followed this schematic, but with tiny alterations. What I did was solder the braided wire of the white wire from the EMG to the ground of the potmeter. There is no ground coming from the bridge. (since it is and EMG hb I didn't think that I would need that) The volume potmeter could be faulty, I can't find any other reason why it shouldn't work, it's soldered ok I think and the wires are in the correct places. (at least according to this schematic). Any input would be greatly appreciated.. I hope to use this guitar at a gig in a couple weeks and I'm getting a lil desperate.. cheers, and happy new year to you all, and DAAAANG it feels good to be building again, even with problems.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 8, 2013 Report Share Posted January 8, 2013 Sound with the plug only halfway in suggests that you have the jack socket wired up wrong. Doublecheck your wiring around the socket. It's not uncommon to accidentally miswire the tip and ring connections, or shorted together with a blob of solder or strand of wire. If you're still not having any luck with it, and still suspect the volume pot, take the volume pot out of the circuit by wiring the braided pickup wire straight to the sleeve of the jack and the white pickup wire straight to the tip. The battery connections are still required for this test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unrealize Posted January 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 I still have some problems with this. I had a look at one of my Jacksons, the RR24 has the exact same setup as I need. Unfortunately I was not able to look at the jack output, cause it seemed that the wires were short and I didn't wanna put too much force pulling it out. I made this drawing tho from how I could understand what was going on. Mainly I would like some confirmation that I'm correct here. Specially on the jack output.. Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 Your tip and ring connections are swapped. Battery negative goes to ring (red in your diagram), signal output goes to tip (white). I assume there is a connection between the braid and the sleeve of the output jack - where you've placed the text on the diagram hides it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unrealize Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 Been hooking this up now, and still some stuff puzzles me. I have switched tip and ring connections, so the Jack output seems to be working just fine now. The volume however does not work.. There is a difference between say '10' and '6'. Volume is louder at '10' but from '6' and down nothing happens.. meaning that the volume pot doesn't cut the volume fully. I have no idea why this happens, it seems to me that my solders are pretty okay. I'm far from good with the soldering iron, but totally crappy I'm not.. Curtisa, thank you very very much for your advice!! Any input again would be greatly appreciated!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 At a guess I would say that the grounded lug on the pot isn't making proper contact with the ground network in the guitar. Check to see if the lug is soldered properly to the pot case, or if it's been snapped off close to the pot body. Plug the guitar in and wind the volume all the way down to 0. Grab a small piece of wire and attach one end to the sleeve of the output jack (don't need to solder it, just twist it or hold it in place). Dab the other end on to the ground lug of the volume pot. Does the guitar output drop to nothing when you're poking around the ground lug of the pot? Do you have a multimeter handy? Even a cheap one from your local hardware store is invaluable for this kind of fault-finding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unrealize Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 I'll have a go at your suggestion tomorrow, getting close to modnight here now. I'm a bit surprised that I have problems witht tho, the pot was working fine 'last round' when I had problems with the Jack output, which is working fine now it seems. I don't have a working multimeter at the moment, but I'm planning to get one asap.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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