One last thread about the Fender Vintage Noiseless

[chuck7]

Well, I got the pickups/switches/pots/etc all wired up and read to go.  Now I am just waiting on the clear on the body to dry to assemble everything.  I have taken pictures along the way, and I will post them up once I have everything done. 

There was an oddity in the wiring diagram I used that I wanted to see if any of you guys can explain.  Here is a link to the diagram I used:
http://www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdf_temp1/stratocaster/0101000_02B/SD0101000_02BPg2.pdf

Its for the Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster.  According to that diagram, the small cap and the resistor are wired in parallel between the lug that the wire from the switch goes to, to the center lug attached to the sweeper, where the wire goes to the jack (on the 500k volume pot).  Wouldn't that allow part of the signal to flow straight from the switch to the jack, bypassing the volume pot completely?  Now I know there is a tiny cap in there, so I would assume only a small bit of treble would get across, but still, wouldn't that mean that I would not be able to ever completely silence the guitar?  I don't understand what effect the resistor has on it, so I don't know exactly what the result in this is going to be.  According to the parts list for the deluxe, it is a 680pf cap and a 220k resistor. 

I took some pictures of the final wiring, and I was pretty pleased with it.  I will try to post the picture when I get home tonight. 

Any info will be greatly appreciated. 

 

[jackthehack]

Based on "normal" wiring that schematic looks all screwed up; looks like they got dyslexic with capacitance and impedance values?

 

[chuck7]

are you talking about how they have the .022uf cap labeled as .022k?  I noticed that too.  On the parts list it shows as .022uf though. 

 

[jackthehack]

That is what I was referring to

 

[chuck7]

OK, did some more research, and I think I understand the setup now.  I was wrong in thinking the small cap/resistor would prevent the volume knob from functioning correctly.  Basically the setup is meant to prevent treble from bleeding off to ground.  I don't quite understand the resistor, but the cap allows some treble to go directly out to the jack, but when you turn the volume down, it is still going to prefer to flow to ground. 

I was thinking of it backwards because I had the idea of "cap wired to ground" embedded in my brain and wasn't remembering that the cap goes to hot in the case. 

Any body know what the parallel resistor is for?

 

[DiMitriR33]

the cap is too prevent the loss of treble. the resistor helps balance it out. and prevent a loss in fidelity. just the cap will retain brightness but the xover point will change with volume position. the resistor will reduce that effect. there is no ideal way to keep a perfect signal but this is a good compromise.

 

[dbw]

The cap acts as a resistor to lower frequencies and a conductor to higher frequencies.  The resistor lets more of the low frequencies through so it doesn't get TOO trebly.  Downside is that you can't turn the volume down to zero with that setup.

 

[DiMitriR33]

you absolutely can turn it to zero!

at zero volume the out put wires are shorted to each other. no signal can drive the amp because there can't be a voltage diferential in the guitar cable. there is always some continuity to the output, the resistor mearly reduces the resistence. a 500k pot with a 500k resistor across the 1 and 2 lugs will look(to the pickups) like a 500k at 10 and a 250k at 0. the taper does change a bit but at clean gain levels it is not noticeable. at high gain 0-1 is more off/on than without the mod. i like it for swells but if the gain is too high or you have a compressor it can be hard to roll into the note. sometimes it comes out like flipping a kill switch.

 

[dbw]

Oh yeah, good call Dimitri.  Total brain fart  :doh:  Sometimes I still think of a volume knob as just increasing the resistance to the pup, and not decreasing the resistance to the ground.  I'm a noob

 

[chuck7]

Here are a couple of pictures of the pickguard/wiring in question. 

There are a couple bits of black tape, one is covering a spot where I over stripped the wire used to jump the common lugs on the 5 way switch, and the other is covering the cap/resistor package as I wanted to be sure it didn't touch ground. 

 

[-CB-]

The parallel resistor is to alter the effective taper of the pot, while the cap allows treble to bleed across.. maintaining high freqs when the volume is reduced... sort of .. kinda.  It only works at one specific setting on the dial... but is a fair approximation all over.