My Humbuckers have arrived...

One set of Lindy Fralins & two differing sets of Di Marzios...

My tele projects were both single coil..I'm a little unsure about how to earth the braded shielding around the humbucker wires.

Do I just sort of twist it up into a threadlike form & solder it to the back of a pot or to the common ground point on the inside of the control cavity?

Are there any tricks to this or any worthwhile hints?

TIA

ps I will try to add more photos & update the web journal soon I'm organising router lessons. ;)

[font=trebuchet ms]I don't know about Lindy Fralin pups, but DiMarzio wiring uses the braid strictly as a shield. The Fralins may use the braid as one of the conductors from the pickup coils. Check into that.

Do [u]not[/u] solder any of your ground connections to the back of a pot! Since you're starting from scratch, there's no excuse for not doing it right. Check out the wiring diagrams and instructions at >Guitar Nuts< for info on shielding techniques. The >DiMarzio< website has a lot of good stuff on how to make best use of those 4-wire pickups. Be aware that the Lindy Fralins may not use the same colour wires in the same way, so be sure about which colour goes where.[/font]

Hi LATS,

Thanks for the tips.

The Fralin pickupd do use different colour codes. They are clearly explained.

On the idiot sheet accompanying the order is the statement "...all have the braid grounded..." I'm not sure whether that means the Braid is already grounded of whether I must do it.

On the DiMarzio 4 Conductor Pickup Instructions it says to solder the Green & bare together then to ground...so I guess I must ground the braid. OK!! LOL

I did my teles a la the Guitar Nuts advice and there is no or extremely low noise..however in these humbucking projects I accepted the offer of Torres Engineering to prewire the pots & output jack and there are copious groundings to the backs of pots....ah well shortcuts have their price!!

If I can wrestle the digital camera away from wife (art student) & kids (general technology hogs) I'll post a photo of it.

So am I right in thinking that I should epoxy in a brass washer to the shielded control cavity connect the wire from the bridge to it and then just run ONE ground wire from a point in the prewired harness to the washer so as to avoid ground loops?

Maybe I'll get the picturs up for you to see first.


Picture removed from web page to recoup space.
That seems to work.

So what do you think? Just 1 black wire to the common ground?

TIA

[font=trebuchet ms]There are exceptions to pretty much anything, but the concept 'The One True Ground' works most of the time for audio equipment. Everything should be grounded at only one point - the sleeve of the jack. All shield braids, pickup ground connections, tone control grounds, all of that stuff, should go directly to that one point.

Test out your connections before you button it up. Even following the diagrams very carefully, you could get pickups from different manufacturers out-of-phase, simply because they may not define the 'hot' side of a coil in the same way.

I couldn't see the pic you linked to. I use a very strict set of firewall rules, and I disable Activex, so a lot of graphics get blocked.[/font]

Hi LATS.

I understand about the common ground.

What I'm wondering is whether I can pick a point in the 'harness' setup and wire it to my common ground. I'm visualising this as a straight series connection. Do you think that this would 1/ be effective and 2/ avoid ground looping?

I would ground the pickups & the bridge wire to the common as well.

I could zip and email the picture to you if you were curious.

Thanks again. Hope to have some progress to report ..er...soon.

Originally Posted by: RobSm...What I'm wondering is whether I can pick a point in the 'harness' setup and wire it to my common ground. I'm visualising this as a straight series connection. Do you think that this would 1/ be effective and 2/ avoid ground looping?....

[font=trebuchet ms]That will just about guarantee making a ground loop if you shield the control cavity, because the mounting collar of the pot will contact the shielding. And you really should shield the control cavity. Quit putzing around, and do it right. :p

Hold a piece of stiff cardboard against the front of your guitar and mark the control locations through the holes in the guitar body. cut holes in the cardboard and install the pots in the cardboard. this jig will hold everything in place while you solder any connections between the pots. After you have the control cavity shielded, you can install the pots, and finish hooking things up. It's worth the time and effort, because if you do it right, there's no reason to ever have to open it up again, unless you decide to try different pickups, or you wear out a pot. Either way, that's likely to be a long time, and meanwhile, you have a quiet, trouble-free axe.[/font]

LOL.....yeah I'm good at putzing round.

Actually it will be easy to modify the prewired connections to the Guitar Nuts recommendations.

More pics on web page soon I hope.