Wiring Groud issue me thinks

[GodWentPUNK]

I have just put together my Model3 with a JE1000 preamp. From the diagram I download here at the JCF, I'm sure I have everything correct. However, when I play the guitar is I get some terrible hum which seems to go away once I touch metal parts of the guitar (bridge). I tried many things to possible find the problem but I cannot not. The pickups I've put into the guitar are Bill Lawerance 500xl and 2-250L's. Any ideas on where my ground issue might be? Is there anything I can do to possible find the grouding problem.

thanks,

joe...

[sully]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

man, i HATE that problem. do you have a multimeter?

[Sunbane]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

*nods* I hate that problem too.

When I've had that though, it was usually something too simple and stupid to be easilly figured out - like, I forgot to ground the pickup switch to the pot casings, or to wire the pot casings together. But, I figure I may have just been lucky not to have this as a persistant problem in any of my guitars.

[GodWentPUNK]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

Sully, Yes I do....

I have a JE1000 in one of my other guitars and I used that one to setup this one. They both will only have 1 volume pot and a mini toggle for the gain boost.

Now, the one this I'm not certain of is this: When I solder the wires to the PC board, I cannot get the solder from one wire to not touch the solder from another wire...they seem to fuse together. How important is it to make sure that the solder from these wire to not touch each other???

joe...

[dg]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

It's very important that they don't touch. You'll probably need to carefully desolder & clean things up, then start over. You may need to use thinner gauge solder & be very precise with the tip of the iron. There are some good tips here:

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/sup...=kbg&pagenum=2

[sully]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

yeah, what dg said. you never want to cross the streams. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] if you've got a digital multimeter, you may be able to set it to beep when you've got a good ground. pete can explain this WAY better than i can (i always call him and say "i'm about to throw this fucking thing!" and he helps me out). but the last time i had a hassle, pete had me check each ground point with the multimeter. when i got a beep, i went on to the next point.

it turned out to be something completely retarded, but doing that can help you narrow it down.

sully

[GodWentPUNK]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

I am using stranded brass 28 gauge wire. Could this be causing any of my grounding/humming issues?

joe...

[dg]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

28 gauge is pretty fine, & brass is not a very good conductor compared to copper. It's got about 1/4 the conductivity. Even so, that solder bridge on the board is suspect #1, then the possibility of a missed or bad ground. One other thing that hasn't been brought up is a ground loop. Make sure that the paths of the ground wires from each part either follow a line or all come to one central point without any closed loops. A loop acts like an antenna for any interference. I had this problem recently when I wired in a coil split on my Model 6. It was like spaghetti in there & it took a while to figure out what was going on.

[GodWentPUNK]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

Yep, I do have a mess and I meant copper--not brass (it was late) Also, what about the Shielding wire on the pickups? Do I just snip those or do they also need to be a part of the 'group'. I had done some testing with a mono plug right to the pickup and when I grounded the shield I get a lot more humming.

joe...

[dg]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

You definitely want to ground that shielding wire. Weird that it caused more noise. [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[GodWentPUNK]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

I'm using Bill Lawerance pickups which came with NO installation instuctions... I guess I'll need to try some different pickups to see if they react the same. I do some pickups that have had no appearent shielding.

joe...

joe...

[GodWentPUNK]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

I'm giving up on my Je1000-- I think I've f'd it up terribly--Not only does it hum but I can no longer get any sound from it. Does someone what it? Maybe you can fix it (and then I'll buy it back [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] ) or take it apart to play with. Just let me know.

joe...

[metallicarocks]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

No, no, no, don't give up yet. Desolder it one more time. When your soldering the wires back on the PC board, you could use electrical tape or something like that over the other contact point to make sure solder doesn't spill over onto it.

HTH

[GodWentPUNK]

Re: Wiring Groud issue me thinks

Hum??? Good idea. I have a je1200 now (on order) and I'm going to give that also a try first. I just don't have the time to unsolder everything and put it all back. I do like the je1200 on my 475 deluxe.

I wounder if there is way to identify where my 'break' in the electronic loop is at?

joe...