First time wiring - something very wrong

[jackson929]

Well I got my partscaster all put together tonight,  Strung it up but something is way off with the electronics.  There is noise and all the pickups work but the volume is terrible and it does not sound at all like a guitar . It is this weird plucking sound.  It is not picking up my overdrive distortion and sounds very weird.

TIA for any help.

 

[stratamania]

Post some photos of the wiring and the soldering. My guess is it could be dry or poorly made joints and possibly missing ground continuity.

 

[jackson929]

Thanks.  Can I eliminate that I fried a pot since there is sound coming from all positions?

 

[stratamania]

Thanks.  Can I eliminate that I fried a pot since there is sound coming from all positions?

I assume you mean you fried a pot.
At this stage you cannot really eliminate anything.

Really you need to provide a lot more accurate descriptions of the wiring scheme and photos for anyone to be able to help.

 

[jackson929]

Okay thanks... I will take it apart tomorrow and get a pic.  Also it is  a Strat 5 way Emerson blender wiring kit.

 

[jackson929]

Some pics.  The white wire in from is the main ground to the trem  , they sent me the wrong color wire.  I realize the grounds on the pot is an ugly job but they are on strongly.  I have not soldered in 20 years and was not good at it back then.  The main positive connections to the switch all went more smooth.

TIA

 

[Logrinn]

Can you provide a sharper image, especially over the switch?

And also, it looks like you have a treble bleed connected. I could be wrong but it looks like it’s lying on top of the potentiometer causing it to short. If it does, you need to carefully lift it up so that it doesn’t touch the back of the pot.

 

[stratamania]

From what I can see I also think that treble bleed is probably shorting on the back of the volume pot.

Also the rest of the ground connections on the back of that pot don't look that great in terms of reliability.

Nothing really needed grounding to the back of the pot to begin with. There is a common ground wire between the three pots provided by Emerson, the various ground wires could have been joined together, soldered and then take a single wire and connect that to the common ground wire. Though that is a bit late now.

 

[jackson929]

Okay, the trebel bleed never looked correct to me but being my first time I assumed it was.  I will move it off so nothing touches. 

The grounds on the pot are sloppy looking but they are all on there solid.  Should I just leave them?  Wouldn't I be able to heat the solder , remove them , tie them together then solder to the common ground?

I really hope that it is just the treble bleed problem for a simple fix.  See in a bit.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[stratamania]

Try the treble bleed first. It must not be touching the back of the pot as that would be shorting the hot part of the circuit to ground.

Just because something might appear solid does not mean that it is electrically a good connection. Yes you could move them but for now it might be better to try the treble bleed first and go from there.

 

[jackson929]

Well it sounds a lot better but still off.  It just seems weak and if I put on heavy drive it still sound not loud and rather clean.

 

[jackson929]

I guess I am going to try to pull all the grounds and solder therm to the common ground.  Not sure what else to do.  After that I guess I will have to buy a new volume pot and try to install that.

Would bad ground connections cause lack of volume or low volume to all pickups?

 

[Logrinn]

Another thing I thought of, which isn't visible in your pictures - if you've connected the output jack wrong, you might get the fault you are experiencing.
Make sure that the ground wire is connected to the ground lug on the output jack and the hot wire is connected to the "tip" lug on the output jack.
If you snap some more images we might be able to assist you further.

 

[jackson929]

Thanks.  I will get my wife to take pics, better camera and she takes good pics.  The output jack came with the prewired kit so I assume it was correct but I will take another look in case they made a mistake.  Dying to hear these dang pickups.  Hopefully I can figure it our but e;electronics are not my strong point.  I do want to spend the time to learn this though so trying to be patient.

 

[jackson929]

Is this pic more clear?

 

[stratamania]

Not all of it is clear unfortunately, however:

• The treble bleed resistor and cap still look as though they could be touching the back of the pot
• The treble bleed resistor and cap ought to have insulation over the twisted parts to avoid an unintentional ground
• The soldering on the back of the volume pot is not good
• It is difficult to see what is going on with the selector switch
• On the selector switch one pickup wire that has been soldered has not been trimmed and could ground unintentionally

I would recommend doing the following:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Bypass the volume and tone controls by attaching the hot wire from the jack to the output of the selector switch that normally goes to the volume pot.
[*]Redo all of the pickup ground wires by taking them off the back of the pot. Twist the ground wires together, tin and attach via a common ground wire to the ground wire between the pots. At this stage using alligator clips might help to rule out soldering.
[*]Do all of the pickups select and now work?
[*]If so you know the remaining problems are in the volume and tone circuit.


[/list]


So the idea would be to isolate things and when you know something works then introduce the next element.
If you are not confident with soldering, practice on something other than the guitar and if necessary enlist local help if needed.

 

[jackson929]

Thank you for the detailed help.

1) The treble bleed resistor and cap still look as though they could be touching the back of the pot.

It does look like it in the pic from the angle but it 100% is not touching anymore.  This fix did make thing better, it sound like a guitar now but the signal just seems extremely weak. 

2) It is difficult to see what is going on with the selector switch

I believe I have this all right.  I had problems soldering the grounds to the pot but soldering to the lugs went smooth and I feel I have them all in the correct places after looking at is many times with my wife. 

The pickups do change with the switch and every position works, just seems very weak. 

I think I can do okay with the soldering now.  The grounds to the pot was my first soldering in decades and I was doing it alone.  I had problems.  Soldering to the lugs was much smoother and with my wife's help I should be able to do the ground wires better.

Would bad ground wires cause a weak signal or volume problem?

 

[stratamania]

Bad grounds could indeed cause a problem. You won't have a correctly operating circuit.

 

[rgand]

Kevin (Cagey on the forum) suggested trying these grounding lugs instead of soldering to the case of the pot. They work great and there's no chance of frying a pot. If you shop around, you can probably find them at a better price than this listing.

 

[rgand]

Here's a photo of the grounding lugs before I did any amount of wiring so you can see them.

With the wiring.