Need help with my first wiring job

[nickmv]

So I'm putting together a parts Firebird from Warmoth, and I've got all my stuff together. It's time for wiring, and I need some serious help. I've got experience with actual soldering, but as far as diagrams go, etc, I'm lost.

I've got 2 Lollar Firebird pickups (bridge and neck) w/3-conductor wiring. I want to wire it in standard Gibson style with a 3-way switch. I have questions:

1. How do I place the pickups in their cavities? Do I run them so that the red/hot wire are both pointing towards the nut/headstock? Do I do them opposite? I'm really lost on positioning of them as far as polarity, etc is concerned.

2. Is there a wiring diagram for 3-conductor wiring? I can't find any for my situation that have 3-conductor. http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WD2HH3T22_00/Guitar-Wiring-Diagam-w-2-Humbuckers3-Way-Toggle-Switch2-Volumes2-Tones.html is the best I could find.

3. Control cavity shielding? I'm hearing yes and no to this question. Any advice?

 

[line6man]

Pickup orientation usually doesn't matter, since you're not splitting the coils.

The wiring is the same in all cases. If you have a separate shield lead, ground it with the negative phase lead; if you have an internal series link brought out to allow for coil splitting, leave it open.

There is no disadvantage to shielding, just do it anyways.

 

[Dan025]

put the pickups in however you think they look the best. if you're not splitting the coils you don't really need to worry about magnetic polarity and winding direction which you would need to worry about if you wanted to keep a noise canceling property with both pickups active and split.

there is ofcoarse a crowd that will say polarity, pole piece type (adjustable/nonadjustable) and winding direction make differences and you can tune your tone this way. these people are all nut jobs and are not allowed on this forum or they will be chased off. some people even insist the orientation of the slots in the adjustable poles need to be  setup a certain way.

the fact is there is a grain of truth, but we are talking microscopic differences. the different pole shapes and materials and distance from the strings will give each coil different inductance, and magnetic properties and output the different locations on the string have different harmonics and nodes but with both coils in use you get both sets of harmonics and nodes, the different coil properties may change there strength just slightly but the cumulative output would be hard to differentiate on a scope, never mind to the human ear. but if anyone tells you they changed the wiring around so the south coil is on the hot side instead of the ground side or whatever because it sounds better or that a clockwise coil sounds different from a counter clockwise coil it's utter nonsense and not to be taken seriously.

as far as sheilding there are two schools of thought. one is that it's like a screen door on a submarine. it'll never keep the noise out and useless. and the thought that it's better to have it and it be useless than not have it and need it. no harm is done in sheilding the guitar.

as far as the 3 conductors go, can you take a picture? im not familiar with lollar pickups and ther are a few ways that could work. is the cable sheilded in a braided wire? are you counting that as a conductor? what colors are the wires?

 

[tylereot]

I'm sure the guys at Lollar will help you in whatever way you need.  You might find something here:
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=guitar-pickups-installation

I'm new here, so I'm following threads like this one closely!
Good luck!

 

[Patrick from Davis]

I am a little confused but the three wire part.  If there is a wire that has a woven wire exterior, this is the hot and neutral of the pickup.  The shielding is ground in this case.  Commonly, there is another wire, often with no insulation on it, that is the ground for the metal on the exterior of the pickup.  You'd figure that you could put them both together as one ground, but there are some wiring setups where it is useful to separate them.  Generally when something is put in series with the pickup, you do not want the metal from the structure of the pickup acting like an antenna in the middle of the wiring.  So you are separating that to keep it from the middle of the circuit, and it gets it's own path to ground.

As far as placement in the guitar, look at some pictures of ones you like and copy those.  If you do not like it later, change it.

Cavity shielding is one of those things people like to argue about.  I like to use shielded wire rather than shielding the cavity.  I find it cleaner, less accidental shorts, and so on.  I have several guitars with no shielding, and they are really no different in noise than the ones that have shielded cord in it.  I tend to like to shield active circuits (My basses), because they amp up the noise they pick up, but I don't have any good evidence that this is necessary.
Patrick

 

[reluctant-builder]

I would install them so that the wires that protrude from each of the pickups run toward the control cavity.