Pickup problem in an Ibanez hollowbody

Lakai

Newbie
Messages
5
My brother just bought a used Ibanez hollowbody. He got it real cheap because the neck pickup does not work. When i was checking it out I noticed that if I touched the neck pickup with one hand while i played it would work but with a lot of hum. Tell me if I'm wrong but that makes me think that the problem is that the pickup is not properly grounded. I've done some wiring before (I built and wired a warmoth strat) but I've never worked on a hollowbody or humbucker pickups before. I took out the pickup expecting to see a loose grounding wire but instead I only saw one wire that went directly to the 3-way pickup selection switch. So my quiestion is where should I connect a grounding wire from/to or am I completely wrong and there's some other problem altogether?

Thanks for your help
 
the ground wire needs to be connected to all the other ground wires. Every part in threre should be connected to ground, switch, jack, pots, pickups and bridge.

Brian
 
There should be more than one wire coming from the wire to the pickup switch. Assuming that it's still an Ibanez pickup(?) here is a place to get the wiring codes for that manufacturer:
http://www.ibanez.com/support/wiringdiagrams.aspx

All the different manufacturers use different color codes, so you have to translate the diagrams. Additionally, there are usually a few correct ways to hook up stuff, and any number of different blade-type selector switches... here is the motherload of wiring info:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=281.0

Of these, this is a good starting point for diagrams:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/

color code translation:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=color_codes

Theory:
http://www.1728.com/guitar.htm

In a certain way, it's mentally easier to wire a guitar from scratch than it is to troubleshoot a dicked one. Rather than just disconnect and reconnect wires sort of randomly, I find it best to draw up a new, original diagram that I know will make that particular guitar work, then compare it to what's in there now. Most wiring problems I see are from people rewiring their own guitars to "fix" them up better... :laughing7: Keep asking questions, and think about how the electricity is supposed to be processed by each component.


 
stubhead said:
There should be more than one wire coming from the wire to the pickup switch. Assuming that it's still an Ibanez pickup(?) here is a place to get the wiring codes for that manufacturer:
http://www.ibanez.com/support/wiringdiagrams.aspx

There is only one wire coming from the pickup... I beieve it's an original Ibanez pickup. Also, it's a full hollowbody with an archtop bridge so i'm not sure how i would ground the bridge.
 
Sometimes these hollowbodies can be a bit tricky when pulling out electonics, and putting them back in.  If you want help, I'm a local (tacoma/puyallup/bonney lake) tech, and would be willing to fix it for you.

email:stockwellguitars@aol.com

p.s. does the 1 wire have a braided metal outer shell, and 'regular' wire coming out from the center?  If so, the metal outer part is the ground, and can be soldered to the outer casing of the volume pot that the center part is connected to.

Mark
 
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