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previous: Mark Hammer When you wire up speakers, you can ... -- 8/15/1999 8:33 PM

Re: guitar wiring basic question

8/18/1999 4:04 AM
Steve A.	Re: guitar wiring basic question Mark: As far as interchanging the white and black leads of a strat pickup, you can have problems if there are any shorts between the pole pieces and the inner wraps of the coils. For Fender style strat pickups, the inside of the windings is traditionally connected to ground and the outside of the windings is the hot output. Before adding in phase or series switches I test for any shorts from the coil to the pole pieces (and rethink my strategy if any shorts are found). When shielding strat pickups with copper foil tape I will usually also ground the pole pieces unless they are shorted to ground. There was a discussion here awhile back that maybe strat pickups would be quieter if the outer windings were grounded (and would act like a shield-right?)* On the other hand it was suggested that the sound might be different with the hot going to the inside of the coil. (I don't believe that any of those issues were resolved at all in the discussion so if you have any ideas on that they would be appreciated.) Steve Ahola P.S. BTW for traditional PAF-style humbuckers (made any of those?) the inside wire of each bobbin is connected to hot (or ground) and the outside wires are used for the series link. But then again there is the plastic bobbin which would keep the wire from shorting out against the screws or slugs. * John Atcheley's theories would tend to negate any lowering of the noise level as he proposes that the audio signal return be kept isolated from the shield grounds (and ground shields as the case may be).

8/18/1999 4:04 AM

Steve A.

Re: guitar wiring basic question

Mark:

As far as interchanging the white and black leads of a strat pickup, you can have problems if there are any shorts between the pole pieces and the inner wraps of the coils. For Fender style strat pickups, the inside of the windings is traditionally connected to ground and the outside of the windings is the hot output. Before adding in phase or series switches I test for any shorts from the coil to the pole pieces (and rethink my strategy if any shorts are found). When shielding strat pickups with copper foil tape I will usually also ground the pole pieces unless they are shorted to ground.

There was a discussion here awhile back that maybe strat pickups would be quieter if the outer windings were grounded (and would act like a shield-right?)* On the other hand it was suggested that the sound might be different with the hot going to the inside of the coil. (I don't believe that any of those issues were resolved at all in the discussion so if you have any ideas on that they would be appreciated.)

Steve Ahola

P.S. BTW for traditional PAF-style humbuckers (made any of those?) the inside wire of each bobbin is connected to hot (or ground) and the outside wires are used for the series link. But then again there is the plastic bobbin which would keep the wire from shorting out against the screws or slugs.

* John Atcheley's theories would tend to negate any lowering of the noise level as he proposes that the audio signal return be kept isolated from the shield grounds (and ground shields as the case may be).