Pickup wiring question!

[Xypher]

I have a MIJ strat and am placing hot rails at bridge and stock Singles at neck and mid. I wud like to know if the stock singles are in phase or out of phase with the hot rails.. If its out of phase then i wud get a different tone at pos 2 and 4 right?

Is there any way to determine? Thx in advance.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

in phase and outta phase not determined by the pickup, its determined by the wiring of the positive(hot) and negative(gnd) wire of the pickup

stock strat wiring, both pickup are wired in phase and parallel together, to get the 2 and 4 position sound

if you wanna out of phase, the sound will be much lower output and thus softer sounding when amplified also can be quite thin sounding. It has its own character thou

The basic of wiring outta phase is that you need at least 2 pickup combined, using either only 1 of the pickup that you wanna combined, switch the hot and gnd of one pickup(as in the usual hot wire from the pickup will be your ground wire and usual ground wire be hot wire) and combined with the 2nd pickup(this one, wiring still the same, hot still be hot and gnd still be ground.

the easy way be using a 2pdt switch to switch back and forth in phase and outta phase setting. Most common be push pull pot.

For the wiring diagram, you might like to google round for the info, theres quite a number of sites that have the instructions and explanation of the in phase outta phase wiring plus what make it in phase and outta phase

oh, this forum and the site got lotsa info and wiring mods, you might like to check it out.

http://guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi (this one the forum)

http://guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=1153172741 ( This one, the most over the top strat wiring mods you can have, without changing the exterior look, and will work. If you want choices, this one the bomb, series, parallel, in phase and outta phase all in one)

 

[sleepykitty]

Out of phase pup config sounds like a half-cocked wah.
as Pathein has said, the output is much lower.

 

[KayCee]

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/pickupwiring.htm

This is a surefire way to get the phase of a pickup right. When a string vibrates over a pickup, it cuts the magnetic flux and induces a very small AC current, hence using a digital multimeter is the best way to check phase. Imagine wiring up everything , screwing back the pickguard only to find out the pickups are out of phase.

Phase isn't just the only issue, humcancelling as well. For humcancelling, the 2 coils must have the opposite magnetic polarity but same electrical polarity. If you check both coils on a humbucker you'll realise both have the same polarity.

 

[fgl]

beware polarity issues.

get a set of fender hot noiseless pups - solve the issue once & for all.

 

[Xypher]

The thing is that i wanna make mine in phase and humcancelling.. If i follow the wiring diagram at the duncan site, do u think i will go wrong? Cos its like a diagram for strats, i think they wud have taken all these into consideration..

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=1h_2s_1v_2t_5w_as

 

[edder]

beware polarity issues.

get a set of fender hot noiseless pups - solve the issue once & for all.

not everyone loves the fender hot noiseless pups.

 

[Xypher]

if i follow the diagram at seymourduncan.com, do you think it will work without any probs?

 

[sleepykitty]

^Yes
I wired my Dimarzio fast track T while refering to SD's pickup wiring diagram. No problems here, assuming you know your way around a soldering iron and solder wire, you engineering student you. =D

 

[Xypher]

Soldering is the least of the problems.. Getting it right w/o any headache is harder.

I hope to avoid those phase phase problems..!! The technical mambo jambo of pickups still boggle my mind..I plan to read up after fixing my guitar.. Or else its like driving a car w/o knowing how the car is moving foward.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

for the phase phase problem, i think if follow the colour code of the wire from manufacturer site, most likely wont go wrong

if you wanna try doing the long way of wiring, theres a way to connect everything without soldering just to try out and make sure circuit is correct, but its gonna be troublesome and more work.

When i was trying to learn wiring on the geetar, most of the time after wiring, the circuit wont work and made me more frustrated. In the end, came up with a stupid idea,

1) Buy 1 roll of thin single core jumper wire from simlim tower
2) Buy one breadboard
3) Get all the pickups out from geetar and get ready all pots, selector switch and output jack
4) Cut length of jumper wire and twist it round and round all the pots, output jack connection point plus pickup wires
5) Connect the pitckup wiring on the breadboard itself.
6) Once everything on bread board, to test it, connect cable from output jack to amp
7) go thru all pickup configuration on selector switch and use a small metal object(screw driver, nail cutter etc) to touch the pole piece. There will be a "thud" sound heard from amp if the connection is correct.
8 ) if theres any wrong connection, there will be either silence or loud hum heard thru the amp
9) for outta phase connection, the 'thud" sound will be much softer then in phase, so its kinda hard to miss it.
10) once confirmed, removed all the jumper wire and put in the pickup, start to solder

only problem thou, for the above is that you cant heard how the guitar sounds like, but only verifying that the connection of circuit is correct. And if theres anything wrong, as mentioned in 9) you will heard loud hum or silence usually(it what i encounter mostly when doing it on breadboard)

to some, it might be a really stupid idea, much much more work and doesnt guarantee will work when everything is fixed on the gutiar, but thru this way, i sorta learn to see how the circuit work and also remember the signal flow kinda other then looking at the schematic or wiring diagram.

heh, if it sound stupid for the above, ignore it. Theres other way to learn the thing also.

 

[Xypher]

I dun understand the Ground part.. i get confused there.. Any gd material to read up?

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

what bout the ground that confuse you? heh, theres some proper info on electrical grounding on google or wikipedia, but that one be more cheem

for my understanding, usually all the negative point, any metallic surface of pots, plate, tremolo base on guitar etc, will be connected to ground, via the tip point of the output jack.

As theres a path for the signal to flow which we can heard thru amp, there will be a ground path for whatever electrical noise/interference to go down to earth. Must balance, if not either no sound or bad hum floating

heh, i might be wrong, but its the easiest way which i try to understand the whole thing

 

[Xypher]

I confuse myself between ground and negative..Cos in a simple lightbulb circuit there is no ground.. (in sch they only teach this simple circuits)..

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

in a light bulb circuit, what you need is just the electricity flow from positive to negative, with the bulb as the load and once electricity pass thru, and flow back to complete the circuit path, the bulb will light up

in some pickup wiring pick, between negative and gnd might be the same, but different way of naming thou( heh, this one must confirmed with the more lau jiao one, iam still learning as well..

) ,but usually if i see negative, i take it as to ground, unless theres specific instruction to do other things.

 

[j_m_s]

bro, i think your answers, are at www.projectguitar.com !

 

[Xypher]

Ok i alr got problem. When i choose neck pos, bridge is activated. When i choose bridge pos, neck is activated.. It kinda swap.. And one of the mid pos isnt hum cancelling.

I followed duncans schematic but i wired the hot rails wires abit differently.. Red and bare to grd, Black to hot and green/black to the other bridge lug..

 

[Xypher]

I think the solution to my problem wud be to wire the humbucker as per normal, but switch the grd and hot from the neck and mid.. But then the fender japan factory cut the wires of the neck n mid to just nice..So i have to extend the ground wires by a few cm to reach the swtich..

Wud the normal wires that r used in pedals..(duno wat guage) be suitable for this "extension"??

THX!! I really wanna get the hot rails screaming asap..

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

you can use those multi strand jumper wire for the extension, just twist it round together with the lead from the pickup and solder together.

After that if you wanna, use some insulation tape to wrap round the area just in case after you install, the bare part might come into contact with other point on the selector switch or ground(shorted in this case)

And if you wanna better protection, can get heat shrink from simlim tower, cut a bit and put it round the area of extension, heat it and it will shrink to cover the extension area tightly.

For the extension cable, i tried those single core(hard to bend), multi strand(7 tiny wires in 1 insulation and softer to twist turn) and some better grade industry usage multi strand(from my work place) before, there dont seem to be a different in performance also. But easiest to work with is the 7 strands type, easy to bend and such

 

[van_halen]

beware polarity issues.

alamak, what polarity issues do we need to be aware of?

Phase isn't just the only issue, humcancelling as well. For humcancelling, the 2 coils must have the opposite magnetic polarity but same electrical polarity. If you check both coils on a humbucker you'll realise both have the same polarity.

what is magnetic polarity and electrical polarity?

i just wired up my guitar, HSS. positions 2 and 4 sound much softer compared to the other positions, and are NOT hum cancelling. i assume it's out of phase and it will be in phase if i just switch the hot and ground wires of the middle pup? if i do that, will hum cancelling be activated for positions 2 and 4 as well?

anyway position 4 sounds really vocal, like a Wah pedal. so i may just keep it out of phase, but how do i fix the problem of NO hum cancelling for position 4?

btw, i have another HSS guitar. position 2 hum cancelling, but position 4 not hum cancelling, i read somewhere that it's normal for position 4 to hum for HSS due to the nature of the humbucker's coils with 1 coil being RWRP (reverse wound, reverse polarity)? can anyone confirm this? if that's the case, then for my first HSS guitar mentioned, positions 2 and 4 hum are natural because the neck pickup is actually a single coil sized HUMBUCKER. what i need to solve then is only the out of phase middle pickup, because there's nothing i can do about the hum on positions 2 and 4 due to the nature of humbuckers, right?

for clarification: position 1: neck, 2: neck+mid, 3: mid, 4: mid+bridge, 5: bridge