Humbucker Wiring Problem- Makin me humbuckin mad!

[IAmTheWalrus]

I'm having an odd issue with a semi-hollow body setup, and was wondering if anyone could offer any advice.

After wiring the harness and fishing the components through the 'F' hole (that was a whole bunch of fun!) all I got was a loud 'NNNEEHHHH!" sound. Crap.

So I've taken to (after pulling the components) wiring the harness externally and am STILL running into some issues. Wondering if I may have fried a pot or the switch... Here goes

Setup:
2ea Wilkinson humbuckers
2ea A-500K Volume Pots
2ea B-500K Tone Pots
1ea 3-way toggle switch
1ea Output jack

After fussing with a variety of wiring plans (No joy, man. Fail.), I decided to test the components to see if I could find a point-of-failure. All tries include proper grounding- excuse me if I omit that in any of the following.

1) Pickup: ground to ground, hot to output--- works

2) Pickup- Hot to Switch (Neck or Bridge position, tested separately), Switch common to output---works

3) Pickup- Hot to Vol Pot lug (grounded), other lug to output jack---works

4) Either\Or-

-Pickup - Switch - Volume - Output
-Pickup - Volume - Switch - Output

-do NOT work. NO signal out.

I've done these tests on each pickup individually. Once or twice, some variation of the above with both pickups.

I've tested the switch for continuity- all good.

Put an ohmmeter on the pots- gets expected reading.

I'm about to order new pots, switch and jack just to be sure. But since all components test OK, but just don't work together, I'm a bit stumped.

Any ideas?

Also- I've considered just going with a 2- Volume setup (no tone)- but can NOT find any diagrams for such. Seems that it would be simple, but since I can't get my setup to work with a traditional wiring scheme I don't want to fuss too much with that idea.

Thanks all!

[curtisa]

1) Pickup: ground to ground, hot to output--- works

Pickups and jack good then.

2) Pickup- Hot to Switch (Neck or Bridge position, tested separately), Switch common to output---works

...

I've tested the switch for continuity- all good.

Assuming you can also switch the pickups at this point, switch is good.

3) Pickup- Hot to Vol Pot lug (grounded), other lug to output jack---works

Did the volume pot work at this point?  Could you control the output of the pickup?  Don't forget that both the third lug on the volume pot and the pickup needs to be connected to ground.

4) Either\Or-

-Pickup - Switch - Volume - Output
-Pickup - Volume - Switch - Output

-do NOT work. NO signal out.

No signal (dead silence) or nothing but noise?

Put an ohmmeter on the pots- gets expected reading.

More detail required.  Did the ohmmeter go across the two outer lugs?  Should get a steady 500K (or near enough).

Across one of the outer lugs and centre?  If you go from centre lug to outer and rotate the pot you should see the resistance change from 0 to 500K.  Measuring between centre and the other outer lug will give the inverse of the rotational resistance (500K to 0).

If you get a problem by this stage, pots are possibly dud.

I'm about to order new pots, switch and jack just to be sure. But since all components test OK, but just don't work together, I'm a bit stumped.

Based on your tests above I'd say the switch and jack are fine, and pots are likely to be OK too.  Don't order in new parts yet, I'm thinking it's just a connectivity error when all the components are combined as a whole.

Also- I've considered just going with a 2- Volume setup (no tone)- but can NOT find any diagrams for such. Seems that it would be simple, but since I can't get my setup to work with a traditional wiring scheme I don't want to fuss too much with that idea.

Simplest one I can find would be this - just delete the tone control from the drawing and you're good to go

[Prostheta]

There's a great tutorial on the main part of the site that Bill Jehle wrote ages ago that should help!