Middle pickup and Sustainer connections

[whitebison66]

I'll apologize if this should be in Wiring and Electronics, but it's about wiring a pickup...

I have a Sustainer in one of my W strats, and I have a middle pickup that I'd like to use. The instructions say where to connect it, but the kit doesn't provide an extra connector.

There's a hole in the circuit board for the ground wire, but the signal wire needs a connector.

There are connectors on the bridge pickup and sustainer pickup (that I of course didn't look at before I plugged them in and I'm leery of yanking them out). I don't know where to get one or how to get around the problem.

Anybody know how to do this? I emailed Fernandes, but never heard from them.

Thanks

 

[exalted]

I'm not sure how these things work, but I imagine pictures would be useful.

 

[whitebison66]

Rather than disassemble the guitar, I took a diagram from the manual and a stock photo of the unit.

The connectors are the U-shaped things at the end of ALL the pickup wires. But they don't give you one for a middle pickup since the kit doesn't ship with one. Lies...  :doh:

I am hoping someone familiar with this kind of thing will go "Oh, that's a Farkley model 46Q connector..."

As I said, I didn't think to photograph the connectors before attaching the other pickups that had them. I assumed that there would be an extra connector, given the Japanese penchant for thoroughness. I was wrong.

 

[disaster]

If I understand your delema properly you want to add the "missing" middle pickup to the sustainer circuit board.  The good news is that the middle pickup return (or negative or "-") has a solder contact on the circuit board.  The bad news is that the middle pickup positive wire needs to be inserted in the 4 pin connector.  This connector uses a "crimp" pin that you probably don't have.  You can contact Fernandes and ask if they can give you one (or a part number from their supplier).  If you can get one you can crimp the pin on (or you can just soler it) & then insert the missing wire into the connector slot (The existing connector should have a missing wire in position #2).

Since you mentioned that you can't contact Fernandes (bummer) the next option is to solder the wire on the reverse side of the circuit card.  You need to locate pin #2 of the connecter where the middle pickup positive wire goes on the reverse side of the circuit card.  Remove the 4-pin connector plug and you should see 4 silver pins in the mating connector on the circuit board.  These 4 pins should go through "holes" in the circuit card and stick out a little on the back side.  You should be able to see these 4 "pins" on the reverse side of the circuit card.  You can "ohm out" the solder points on the back to the pins on the front to convince yourself these are indeed the same electrical points.  You can just solder the middle pickup positive wire to the pin on the back side of the circuit card.  (Don't worry if soldering losens the pin and it comes completely out.  There is a "plated metal through hole" machined into the circuit card.  This plated metal through hole is metal and will accept solder just fine.  You can solder the wire right into this hole (assuming the wire diameter is small enough to fit the hole - if not just solder to the metal ring surrounding the hole on the reverse side of the circuit card, it will hold the wire).

Good Luck.

 

[whitebison66]

I will try that solution, and THANK YOU!