Welcome to hell

[Mr. Air]

This afternoon and evening I've spend a lot of hours installing new pots in my LP. When I was finaly done I plugged in the guitar and... no sound! DANG!!!

Now I got no idea where I went wrong and it seems to me that I have followed the wiring diagram. This just totally sucks  :x and why isn't there a crying smily cause that's me right now! And when I'm already bitchin' why is there sooooo little work space in the cavity of a LP???

I think I'm gonna have to let some one a bit more pro than me look at it.

If you're interested this is the wiring diagram than I used

http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WD2HH3T22_01/Guitar_Wiring_Diagram_2_Humbuckers3Way_Toggle_Switch2_Volumes2_TonesCoil_Tap.html

[ToneMonkey]

You should have seen the text messages that my mate sent me when he was wiring one of thos superswitches (20 contacts on the bottom).

Time for a cup of tea I think.  Have a look at it after.

And here's a crying smily for ya  :(

[FernandoDuarte]

There is:

Can't help, sorry I'm the worst in wiring

[FELINEGUITARS]

Any chance of a clear photo of the wiring and of the 3 way switch and I'll see if I can advise

[ToneMonkey]

shall we have a sweepstake.  My money is on jack socket.  :D

[Philly Q]

No sound at all?

Here's one that's happened to me:  "hot" side of the jack touching the shielding in the control cavity and therefore totally shorting the signal.

Just a guess.


Here's the crying smiley, if that helps: 

[Mr. Air]

Any chance of a clear photo of the wiring and of the 3 way switch and I'll see if I can advise

I'm not sure if it's possible with a clear photo of the wiring. It really seems like one giant mess to me, but I'll try and see if I can take a good one.

I don't have the guitar at hand in writing moment, but I think I left two wires unsoldered and I guess that's just generally not the way to go. Reason for leaving the wires unsoldered is that I used the existing wire from the old pots and it didn't quite correspond to the diagram I followed. Not really the best starting point if you're a total amateur in the tech business just like me.

[Mr. Air]

Yesterday I totally forgot that there's something called a pickup switch. So I just hooked up the guitar again and there's no sound when the bridge pickup is involved, but on the neck alone there's a thick hum. Does this mean anything to you tech guys?

[Mr. Air]

Here's some pics added.

I don't know if they're any help at all???

[Dmoney]

thats hard to get my head around...

[Ratrod]

I do hate complex wiring. :lol:

Can't quite get my head around this bowl of spaghetti either.

Maybe Jonathan can. If he can't you can always desolder everything and start from scratch. Do as much as possible outside the guitar.

[WezV]

there are a few things going wrong in there but its really hard to see whats happening around the switch so its hard to advise

the tone controls are easy to diagnose (as are the spare wires).  you need to wire the left had lug straight to the back of the pot, instead you have the white wire heading over to the volumes and hanging loose.  but that doest explain the other issues

i recommend either starting from scratch, wiring in sequence following the signal flow.  so: pickup - push/pull - volumes - 3-way switch - output.  then worry about the tone pots as they are really an off shoot from the main signal flow and not essential to it working correctly.  If you have a multimeter you can easily test it is working at each stage

or... just take it to a tech, depends how frustrated you are getting.  its good to figure it out and learn how to do it but you havnt started on the easiest wiring and if you feel like throwing it all against a wall then a tech is the better option!!

[gwEm]

my advice is to strip it all out, and rewire it from scratch /without/ the coil tap to being with.

edit: its easy to add the coil tap later

[FELINEGUITARS]

there are a few things going wrong in there but its really hard to see whats happening around the switch so its hard to advise

the tone controls are easy to diagnose (as are the spare wires).  you need to wire the left had lug straight to the back of the pot, instead you have the white wire heading over to the volumes and hanging loose.  but that doest explain the other issues

i recommend either starting from scratch, wiring in sequence following the signal flow.  so: pickup - push/pull - volumes - 3-way switch - output.  then worry about the tone pots as they are really an off shoot from the main signal flow and not essential to it working correctly.  If you have a multimeter you can easily test it is working at each stage

or... just take it to a tech, depends how frustrated you are getting.  its good to figure it out and learn how to do it but you havnt started on the easiest wiring and if you feel like throwing it all against a wall then a tech is the better option!!

+1
There seems to be a bit of duplication of wires going between volume and tone pots
I would strip all that off from the tone pots and follow the wiring that you have a diagram for
Start by getting the pickups connected to the volume pots and the coil taps
Then test the output!
then add the tone controls and test again

[Mr. Air]

Thanks for all the advice, guys.

I think I'll desolder everything, or most of the wires, and start from scratch. I'm tempted to just hand the guitar over to a tech, but I want to be able to do wiring myself so I'll have to bite down hard and get back in the ring with another go.

I find the wires from the pickup switch a bit confusing as they're kept together inside a "wire tube". Isn't it quite simple to replace these wires with new ones? I'm thinking it would be easy if I just did one at a time. Am i wrong here?

the tone controls are easy to diagnose (as are the spare wires).  you need to wire the left had lug straight to the back of the pot

If I'm getting this right one of the tone pots' lugs should be soldered to the back of the pot like on a volume pot?