Jimmy Page wiring with volume issues.

[Dr Jinx]

Hey everyone!

https://ibb.co/jwcjMvN The wiring diagram in question.

I've just wired up my homemade firebird with Jimmy Page wiring using Seymour Duncan pickups, and everything works great except for there is volume bleeding through on 0 on both volume pots. Regardless of which pots are enabled, the volume never goes to absolute 0 and off.

I've checked grounding on everything with the multimeter, and pots are self grounded with grounding going to the bridge, switch, and jack.

[curtisa]

When you check the grounding on the pots what kind of reading are you seeing on the multimeter? Also, what point are you comparing against when you check the grounding on the pots?

[Dr Jinx]

I test them all from each pot in correlation to every other pot, all singing fine.

 

The multimeter i have has the ground option, so when the two points are touching metal it just displays a 1 and a constant beep.

 

Someone on another forum has suggested it could be due to the 50s wiring of the capacitors?

[curtisa]

17 minutes ago, Dr Jinx said:

I test them all from each pot in correlation to every other pot, all singing fine.

Can you get ground continuity from the back of the pots all the way to the outer sheath on a guitar cable plugged in to the jack socket?

 

17 minutes ago, Dr Jinx said:

The multimeter i have has the ground option, so when the two points are touching metal it just displays a 1 and a constant beep.

Put the multimeter into Ohms mode and measure from the back of one of the volume pots to the ground lug on the jack socket - you should see a reading of zero (or very close to).

 

17 minutes ago, Dr Jinx said:

Someone on another forum has suggested it could be due to the 50s wiring of the capacitors?

Unlikely to be the issue.

Are you noticing any other problems? More buzz than usual? 

[Dr Jinx]

No more buzz than usual, no other issues.

 

Yeah ground continuity follows through to the cable.

[curtisa]

Can you try this test?:

Quote

Put the multimeter into Ohms mode and measure from the back of one of the volume pots to the ground lug on the jack socket - you should see a reading of zero (or very close to).

Sorry - I just edited my previous post, you may have missed it.

[Dr Jinx]

Oh sorry yes i missed that, I'll check that just now; with the volume at 10 or 0?

[curtisa]

Shouldn't matter.

When you've done that, plug a lead into the jack and measure ohms between the tip and sleeve of the other end of the lead with the all volume pots at 0 - you should also read zero ohms (or nearly zero).

If not I suspect you have a high resistance ground somewhere between the pots and output jack.

[Dr Jinx]

Yeah it reads zero ohms on both volume pots. 

How would one identify a high resistance ground? Thank you so much for this help btw!

[curtisa]

9 hours ago, Dr Jinx said:

Yeah it reads zero ohms on both volume pots. 

OK, one last test - set the bridge volume control to zero and measure from the centre lug of the pot to the case with the multimter set to ohms. Should read zero again. Repeat for the neck volume pot.

9 hours ago, Dr Jinx said:

How would one identify a high resistance ground?

If there were one you'd be seeing readings above zero on the last couple of tests (maybe a couple of hundred ohms?). The fact that you can't get the volumes to completely off suggests that the pots cannot short out the pickup signal all the way to ground when rotated fully counter-clockwise, which is what should be happening under normal circumstances. The fact that both volumes appeared to be doing it was leading me to believe that it was something common to both pots, hence why I suggested a high resistance ground between the pots and the jack. Another possibility is both pots are damaged internally (maybe overheated when the lug was soldered to the case?), which is what the latest test, above, is trying to check.

There's nothing mechanically stopping the pots from rotating all the way to zero? Nothing rubbing underneath the dial? The knob isn't hitting something as it is being rotated?

[Dr Jinx]

Thats odd, the neck volume has a very low figure flickering above zero, and the bridge volume, has no reading at all.

I'm gonna try a different brand of push pull puts and rewire the whole thing, theres nothing physically stopping it from going to 0 but at this point I think its worth trying!

[curtisa]

Yes - your readings sound a bit suspicious. The neck one doesn't seem too bad, but you should be reading something on the bridge pot.

Maybe double check you're making good contact on the back of the bridge volume pot when taking your measurements before writing it off - some pots can have a slightly insulative coating applied to the cases to prevent corrosion that may be upsetting your readings.

[Dr Jinx]

Thanks mate, I'll try that first before re-doing the layout. Keep ya posted once I've done so for future readers!

[Dr Jinx]

On 10/17/2023 at 9:01 AM, curtisa said:

Yes - your readings sound a bit suspicious. The neck one doesn't seem too bad, but you should be reading something on the bridge pot.

Maybe double check you're making good contact on the back of the bridge volume pot when taking your measurements before writing it off - some pots can have a slightly insulative coating applied to the cases to prevent corrosion that may be upsetting your readings.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/volume-never-fully-off-with-jimmy-page-wiring.2504372/

 

i posted the same issue to another forum, whatdya make of these mate?

[curtisa]

From what I can tell there are multiple versions of the Jimmy Page wiring scheme floating around, including one from Seymour Duncan themselves, all of which differ from each other in various ways.

As far as I can tell from your particular redraw of it:

• You have correctly transcribed the version you were given, linked at your TGP thread, into your MS Paint version (assuming that was correct to begin with, which I think it is).
• Your version changes the order of the pickup coils compared to other versions. You have red = hot, white = ground, black+green = middle of coils, whereas the SD standard is black = hot, green = ground, red+white = middle of coils. However, wiring the humbuckers as you have it does not affect the way the pickup works - all you've done is swap the order of the left and right coils on the humbucker frame.
• The four switches/pots do the required functions (coils splits, phase reverses, series/parallel, volume and tone) as drawn, even if they do it slightly differently to other versions of the wiring diagram.
• The above aligns with your experiences that everything appears to work OK; it's just that you can't make the volume pots go to completely silent.

Fundamentally, if the guitar is wired exactly as you have it drawn and there are no faults with the various components I think it should work.

[Dr Jinx]

8 hours ago, curtisa said:

From what I can tell there are multiple versions of the Jimmy Page wiring scheme floating around, including one from Seymour Duncan themselves, all of which differ from each other in various ways.

As far as I can tell from your particular redraw of it:

• You have correctly transcribed the version you were given, linked at your TGP thread, into your MS Paint version (assuming that was correct to begin with, which I think it is).
• Your version changes the order of the pickup coils compared to other versions. You have red = hot, white = ground, black+green = middle of coils, whereas the SD standard is black = hot, green = ground, red+white = middle of coils. However, wiring the humbuckers as you have it does not affect the way the pickup works - all you've done is swap the order of the left and right coils on the humbucker frame.
• The four switches/pots do the required functions (coils splits, phase reverses, series/parallel, volume and tone) as drawn, even if they do it slightly differently to other versions of the wiring diagram.
• The above aligns with your experiences that everything appears to work OK; it's just that you can't make the volume pots go to completely silent.

Fundamentally, if the guitar is wired exactly as you have it drawn and there are no faults with the various components I think it should work.

I cant tell you how happy that makes me mate, the pots i used were relatively cheap, so I've got 4 better quality ones on the bench ready to be wired up; i'll let you know how it goes!

Do you think wiring the tone capacitors as modern wiring rather than 50s wiring would help things out or make much of a difference?

Thanks so much again!

Edited October 19, 2023 by Dr Jinx

[curtisa]

15 hours ago, Dr Jinx said:

Do you think wiring the tone capacitors as modern wiring rather than 50s wiring would help things out or make much of a difference?

In terms of fixing the volume issues, It shouldn't make any difference. The choice between 50s and modern wiring is largely a subjective one.

[Dr Jinx]

Update: fixed, it would appear changing the pots for a different brand was all that was needed!