Wiring Question For New Pups

[nabskater]

Hey guys i just ordered about $200 worth of control plates and pups and bridges and all sorts of goodies, and they all arrived today. Ive never tried to wire a guitar before but so far so good. I followed the directions on the CS Texas Special pups i got for my telecaster and it all worked fine. There is one wire left on each pickup however. Im confused as to what they do. On the illustration it has three horozontal lines which im guessing indicates a ground? Thats the only problem ive run into so far! ;)

The symbol looked like this

_______
_____
____

thats the best i can draw it, and it had the wire going into the top.

Thanks!

[rsrelic]

Hey guys i just ordered about $200 worth of control plates and pups and bridges and all sorts of goodies, and they all arrived today. Ive never tried to wire a guitar before but so far so good. I followed the directions on the CS Texas Special pups i got for my telecaster and it all worked fine. There is one wire left on each pickup however. Im confused as to what they do. On the illustration it has three horozontal lines which im guessing indicates a ground? Thats the only problem ive run into so far! ;)

The symbol looked like this

_______
_____
____

thats the best i can draw it, and it had the wire going into the top.

Thanks!

That is the electrical sign for a Ground, and the extra wire is a ground for the cover on the neck pickup, and the base plate of the bridge, and they just ground to the back of the volume pot.

Roy

[nabskater]

Thanks! Ill give that a try and then... *gasp* see if it works!

[nabskater]

Oh kuh-rap. Ok so im all excited and what not to go plug in to my amp and give these a try. And of course they dont work. I went thru the illustration and everything seems right. I know its after the tone and vol pot because both of those still work for making the buzz go up down etc. I was wondering what are some good troubleshooting methods to figure out what happened. Or should i just take it to a pro? I kinda wanted to do this because that way ill know how to and that way i can play instantly Any help is appriciated!

[Iowegan]

I spent 2 hours trying to put CS Texas Specials in my MIM 60's tele last Friday. I gave up and took it to a techie in Des Moines and he had it done in 20 minutes. First he stripped off all the old wire and solder and had clean pots and switch. Then he tinned all of the leads and the tabs on the switch. He cut all the jumpers from left over cloth wiring from other projects. He put all the jumpers in and wired in the pups. It was a beautiful thing. Well worth the $30.

[nabskater]

Alright alright, you convinced me! I guess ill have to go that route and just watch a pro and maybe learn for next time.

[nabskater]

Ok well i was messing around with it today some more. I have 3 different wiring diagrams. The first one i used was the one that came with the pups, that obviously didnt work. Now i used one i got from fender.com that worked for the neck pickup but the bridge didnt work. So i was just holding the two bridge pup wires and with it plugged into my batt powerd amp i was trying all the combinations of places on the switch it could go and i finally found one where both pickups worked. However it doesnt work when you mix them. Its ethier one or the other because the middle position of the switch doesnt work. I was wondering if someone could post a wiring diagram and maybe a real pic of their wiring under the control plate of their tele. Thanks so much!!

[chuckocaster]

you do know that the neck pup with it being a three wire, one wire goes to the swtich, and the other two go to the pot. the wiring diagramn that came with them should work just fine. i'm sure though that if you're local tech is cool he/she will let you sit in with them while they wire and teach you how to do it.

[nabskater]

Wow thanks! Fiannly some advice i can trust haha. The only place to repair or do anything to guitars takes about 3 weeks to install a set of pickups... so i think that even if i waste a few days noodeling with this itll be better in the end, because then ill have the experience and to 20-$50 i saved!
2 quick questions tho: I get the part about the neck lead and bridge lead and such but the 2 other wires from the neck pup go to the back of the volume pot for grounding right? Also i was wondering if someone could explain why theres a wire running thru 2 of the little connecty-thingys on the switch (where you solder to) and they go to the pot, however no wire from the pup directly connects it. Im guessing theres a connection somewhere else in the switch?

[nabskater]

Oh Yeah and if theres a white yellow and black which colors go where, or does it matter? And what about the yellow and black in the bridge? Arent black usually grounds? Thanks again!

[chuckocaster]

looking around nab it should go, white lead from the neck pup goes to the switch, the yellow and black are soldered to the back of the pot for ground. yellow wire from the bridge pup goes to the switch, and the black wire grounds to a pot. there really is no need to ground the two pots together because the hot dog plate takes care of that.

i would double check all your connections, it is very easy to have a bad solder joint. this will cause your guitar to not work even though everything is wired "correctly". i would also look again at the diagram fender sent you because it should show both ways to wire these pups. one should be for a four way switch, and the other for a three way. you haven't specified which one you are using, but i'm assuming you are using a three way switch since that is more common.

brudr had the same problem a little while ago. if you go to his thread http://www.thefenderforum.com/forum/...special+wiring it has the burton wiring with texas specials. this should be the diagram you should use.

[brudr]

Yup, It appears the TS pickups are bit more demanding of good quality solder joints etc... Chuckster's advice is right on, even though I could never get my neck pickup to sound like anything but "out of phase". I really think my problem was that the particular pot I was wiring to was just about "soldered out" and needs to be cleaned etc.. I'm going to swao it out for anothe 250k I have that appears to be in better shape. Hang in there! You'll learn as you do.

[nabskater]

Well when i took it to a music store that was about 45 mins away because i htought they had better service/prices the repair shop was closed for the night so they said call tomarrow to get a price estimate. So i did and the guy said it would probably be $150 for 2 new pots a new switch and the pickups all wired. i was like are you kidding me? He charges $30 per pickup. I am no way going to pay that. So i went on stew mac and ordered another switch (the one i had got clogged with solder and i think that was a contributing factor to the not working) and 3 pots (in case i mess one up) all for $30 shipped. And now if i can get this one working ill have saved $120. Yay!

[chuckocaster]

not to be a naysayer nabskater, but do yourself a favor and go to radio shack and buy a solder sucker, it'll save that switch you goobered up. they really are a lifesaver.

150 for a wiring job? that is absolutely ridiculous. really it should only take a half hour sans parts. which means like 30-50 bucks.

edited to add:

i'm glad to see you're sticking with this. guitar wiring is not rocket science, but it does take practice and patience. i learned once that you have to screw up a couple times before you get something right. and once it's right you go on to refine it. trust me man, i've melted plenty of pots and plugged in many of guitars that had no output before i got on the right track. :blbros

[nabskater]

Ok well i took the advice and went to radio shack and spent 6 WHOLE DOLLARS on a solder sucker. It works pretty good and now i dont have to strategically make it drip off whatever it is im soldering and try not to leave a burn mark on somthing. I think the switch is shot, so im not worrying about that, i just cleaned everything up and got it ready for the new pots and the new switch that should be arriving shortly. Ill give you guys an update on how it turns out

[nabskater]

Alright well so far almost good. I used the new pots and new switch and i soldered everything together acording to the diagram from fender of a 'standard tele wiring'. The neck and bridge both work indivually but i can get them to work mixed. Theres no sound at all, not just one working, both pups just dont work. Any ideas about where i should start looking to fix this?

[chuckocaster]

are you connecting both sides of the switch together? if you can post a pic of what you're wiring looks like.

[nabskater]

Hey sorry for the long wait, but i had a nice relaxing wekend away from home. Anyway now i can get back to working on this beast. Another problem has befallen me as well. Now nethier of the pots work. I KNOW! SO STUPID! I dont know wether i fried them (if thats even possible) from soldering or if i just connected them wrong. Ok so here are the pictures... get ready to rip them to shreds









Man it was such a bitch getting the flash to not blind the lens of the camera from that friggen hot dog plate.

PS Dont mind that bag in the background of the last shot....

[chuckocaster]

oregano? i could spot that anywhere...

looks like to me (don't know if the pics are out of focus or my computer is acting up, it's a little blurry) that the poles aren't hooked up properly on the switch.

[nabskater]

Well today i finally got around to plugging the tele into my HRDlx today since i had 2 out of the 3 positions working... And to my suprise the middle position worked. Now given that it was about 3% of the volume of the other two positions. Chuck, is there somthing you want me to take a picture of so that you can better assess the situation. And by the way man thanks for helping me because this is really frustrating! And what is a pole?

[chuckocaster]

so the middle position was out of phase? this would mean that the pups on their own were fine but when in the middle position the output decreased and they sounded thin? if this is correct swap the leads on the neck pup leaving the pup cover ground alone. this should fix your problem. let me know man.