The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hi fellas.... me again.... I'm just a sucker for punishment, really!

I've rewired the Avenger 395 that I got from Don as the volume pot had a snapped shaft and the wiring was a bit untidy anyway but now I've got a horrendous ground hum happening and I've de- soldered and rewired twice now but the hum is still there and I'm at an impasse.
I've used a pot I bought from Stewmac called an Alpha, from what I've read, they're not a particularly high quality pot; could this be the problem?

Does anyone have the diagram for one of these: 1h/b, 1s/c, 3 way switch and coil tap.....

Thanks guys...

John

Nothing wrong with Alphas. There´s however two "lines" of them and the lesser one can be of just ok Q. The better ones tho are on par with CTS IMO. Can be had in both 16 and 24mm config.

If you wanna trace this down start by pluggin the guitar in John.
Then have in mind how the grounding path is routed. Normaly the first thing to see ground connection is the actual jack. If you touch the jack and the hum stops...then you know it is a missing wire somewhere.
If however touching the outputjack does nothing...then you´ve probably hooked somethng up wrong. Ie; check the switch and the pups.

As for the actual pot...
It´s got two outer legs and a middle lug-aka wiper. The wiper is always the outboard going wire. Ie; the one sending the signal on its way OUT of the pot. Always.
Word of advice as for getting the solder to hook to the pot chassis a little easier is to sand the surface with a piece of emery or whatever along those lines ever so slightly. The roughing of the surface makes it way easier for the solder to get a grip on the chassis.

To have in mind when within the "engine cmpt" of a solidbody is that there are two wires that are often forgotten. First is the groundwire for the bridge. This normaly comes out at a 90deg angle from the bridge area somewhere and is more often than not a completely bare wire.
The second is the one needed for the switch-regardless of if it´s a "strat style 5 way" or a "paulie 3 way".

Third...is to check the actualy connection of the leads of the tonecap. If lose...that kind of works like one big microphone.

Ooh..... There's no wire to the bridge as such; just the wire to the trem claw. The quality of the trem hardware is awful, though - maybe I need a second wire to the bridge? Should I set out a star ground, do you think? However, I think you're right; I've cocked it up somewhere.... ho hum....

Oh mate, the time I've spent chasing down a "bad ground"! That's my nemesis.
Most times it is just as Jesper's already detailed.
In my case it's usually the simple/obvious connections that I bollox up, like the jack. Or simply a bad solder ground to the back of the pot.

_________________
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

A continuity meter is your friend here. Start at the jack and check every ground point for continuity. When you don't have it, you have found your problem. A wire to the trem claw is usually enough to ground the bridge. If nothing else works than you may have a ground loop and the star system is your friend.

Right.... The continuity stops at the trem claw; there is no signal from the bridge itself. The buzzer stops when I reach the end of the spring that is inserted into the trem block.

So, should the bridge be part of the circuit, and if so, should I put an extra earth wire to it?

Basicaly anything metal,any neckplates aside, on the guitar should be in the loop,and yes..the bridge too.
However both the springs and the bridge itself should be conductive. My advice would be to release tension of the springs and examine contact points for them at both ends. Look for rust and oxides
Also check the solderjoint for cracks et al at the claw. Redo if it looks the least suspect.

The soldered wire to the spring claw should suffice.

Goodness.... it's been nearly a year since I've looked at this one!! Once I'd sorted the ground hum by adding a from the claw to the bridge, I just put it away and boxed on with other projects, including the Urchin, so it was a nasty surprise to pull it out of the case, plug it in and find out that the volume pot is working like a tone pot, the tone pot is acting like a tone pot so no troubles there but the output is down and quite shrill to boot!

So, I'm going to rewire the beast again because I'm quite sure I've bollocksed this up somewhere; to that end, has anyone got a diagram of a H/S guitar with a volume, tone with a pull pot for coil split and a 3 way selector?? I've been all over the web and can't quite find what I'm after.... so, help a brother out, fellas...

I've replaced the OEM h/b with a 45 I had lying about which has red/white/earth....

Did you see this one John?
http://www.dimarzio.com/sites/default/files/diagrams/1sc1h1ppphasev1ppsplittone_3w_all.pdf
Pretty close. Should be able to work out the different bits OK?

_________________
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com