Pup Problems

[doc540]

Well, hellz bellz.

A gracious friend from TFF was nice enough to GIVE me a Seymour Duncan bass pup.

I installed it, swapped wires to get the impedence correct, and it sounded great.

Then...


it just died.

I checked all the wires, pulled the pup, reconnected the wires, checked the connections on the bottom of the pup...

Nothing.

Zilch.

The only thing I did different was adding an extra layer of foam under the pup so I could adjust the height. It played perfectly then a day or so later when I plugged in to practice...d e dead.

Any ideas? I mean, how much more simple can this be?

Oh, I have an multimeter test thingamabob. Will that help troubleshoot it?

Don't forget I'm a clueless dumbass.

thnx

[photoweborama]

Is it so dead it has no output from the bass at all?

If this is the case, it may simply be the jack is grounding on the body if it is shielded, or the jack is bad. I had a jack go bad and I just had to put a bead of solder on the jack to make the ground connect again. It works fine now.

Otherwise….
Unsolder it and put your meter on ohms scale and see if you get a reading. If it reads like 6-10 ohms, it should be ok. If it reads really high, then a wire broke. If it reads 0 then it shorted somewhere.

If you get a normal reading, wire it direct to your output jack and see if it works. If it works this way, then it may be in the pots or something else in the wiring.

[doc540]

Thanks for responding.

I've swapped in another pup, so the pot and jack are ok.

I'll hook it up to my multimeter and see what I get.

Thanks!

[Lemniscate]

Well, I'll have a go.

Do the wires coming out of the pup have smallr wires attached to them at a definite point<like a solder tag,or do they disappear into the tape? It's easier if they don't . The smaller wires are each end of the coil as you probably know and you need to check they're still attached to the larger wires/conductors.

It's possible that it could be shorted inside the winding, which may be a pain.

Leaving that aside;

Multi-meter set to ohms- one lead of multimeter to each conductor of the pup - any reading?

If not, try and read the finer wires if you can find them.

If they give you a reading then you'll need to re solder those fine wires to the conductors.

If you have to go inside the winding,it's a pain in the arse as the tape can cause mayhem, [sticks to coil and rips windings out,etc]. Be carefully ans steady-handed and you can do it though.

It's hard [you can hardly see it!] but possible to solder a join in the outer wrap of the coil winding,if it's much further down the coil nearer the poll it's really more trouble than getting a Mighty Mite [etc] or having a total rewind.

I f you're lucky you'll have got there by now,or before.
:)




Good Luck.

PS sorry so long a reply, range should be approx 6-10 K ohms [Kilohms] for a normal pup.

No offence photoweb, people need to get the range correct or they could get themselves into trouble with their electronics.

:)

[doc540]

wait....I don't know how to read this meter.

It has what looks to be an ohm scale at the very top starting at 100 then 50/20/10/5/4/3/2, then a wide scale between 2 and 0.

Also, which setting do I use? The clickable dial has DC-V on the left, AC-V on the right, OFF in the center, RX1KQ to the left of off and 150mA DC to the right of center.

I seem to only be able to get a reading on the RX1KQ setting when I touch the probes, so I guess it's the right one.

One other thing. On the RX1KQ setting when I touch the probe, the needle indicates "6" on the Ohms scale.

Next I have to determine which of the 5 pup wires to test.

Hey, I told you I was a dumbass and no nothing about electricity.

When I touch the pup wires I get a reading of of "100" on the Ohm scale if I'm reading it right.


oops..sorry I didn't see your post above.

the pup has two solder points with a white and black wire running from them.

Touching those points gets a reading of about 50 (something) on the scale.

[photoweborama]

Is there a screw to calibrate it on the top somewhere, when you put the leads togeter, it should read 0. If not you should be able to calibrate so it does. Otherwise you will get a false reading. I think for your test, either 10 or 20 ohm scale should work.

[doc540]

Well, there ya go. It's not reading O when we cross the probes.

MrsDoc is getting it set to O before we test the wires.

[doc540]

Duh...the battery was low in the meter.

We have 8 ohms thru the pup.

What does this mean, gents?

[photoweborama]

That's about right. hook it straight to the output jack and see if it works. you don't have to solder it, just touch the wire to it. Use a screwdriver to touch the poles. plug and turn on your amp. If it's working, you will hear a pop when you touch the poles

This is actully how they test to see if the pickups work at the Mexico Factory.

[Marcondo]

99% of the time when a pickup just goes dead for no reason its the switch. If no switch is present something is probably shorting out to ground.

[Lemniscate]

Sorry, I missed this, Doc..had to go to bed.

Howzitt now??

[doc540]

I haven't messed with it again today.


But after chores are done I might test it by connecting it to the jack.

I'm not too worried cause I snagged a set of EMG's off eBay this week. The Bastard Beater marches ON!

And thanks for all the help everyone. I'll let y'all know what transpires.

[Lemniscate]

Cool. Good luck.