Wiring Info needed

[Ryan Guiney]

Hello,
I am new here. I have purchased a new strat knockoff (very cheap) and am replacing the stock pickups in it. I am doing this on the cheap guitar before buying expensive pickups. This is just a project for me and I will probably end up giving the guitar to one of my nephews. It is a learning experience for me. This is not my only guitar, so if it sucks no big deal.

I am curious to see what three humbuckers sound like. I have looked over the interwebs for wiring for this setup that I want to do and have had no luck. I can find diagrams for hooking up three of the style of middle pickup I am using, and I can find diagrams for 4 wire regular humbuckers, but the only diagrams I can find for two wire pickups are for single coils. It is a strat like guitar so it has 1 vol and 2 tones. (for the money the guitar actually plays nice, I just do not like single coils.) - Again, for the electronics, I think I have less than $70 in it all including the pick guard, and $79 for the guitar. If this layout sucks I may just get two more of the dual rails and have three of those.. but I was trying to get 3 humbuckers for as cheap as possible for the testing.

The layout will be N= Regular Humbucker, M= Dual Rail humbucker, B= Regular Humbucker.

Here are the items I am working with.

Guitar - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009K2 ... ge_o05_s02
Neck and Bridge Humbucker pickups - didn't include a wiring diagram, but each pickup has a hot wire and a bare ground.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AXE ... ge_o05_s00
Middle pickup - this is a hot rail type pickup- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZTG ... ge_o05_s01 - I wanted the black version of this but they ran out so I just got white. Not concerned with the colors.

I have two different wiring kits I can choose from. Each have a 5-way switch. Not looking to do split coils unless I need to. I have some pull pots on order but they will not be here until next week.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0095D ... ge_o02_s00
Or
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EBY ... ge_o03_s00

Any suggestions or links to something for how to wire this layout would be greatly appreciated. I have attached images of the pick guard with the pickups in it for visual. I have not put the pots in yet.

[Jason Rodgers]

This would give you some basic options on a 5-way.
http://WWW.guitarelectronics.com/produc ... 11-01.html

[Peter Wilcox]

Here's one option: http://d2pzqzfqz0w13y.cloudfront.net/wp ... _1V_2T.jpg

The diagram shows colors for Duncan pickups, which are different than yours. Connect the hot leads from your bridge and neck pups to the 1st and 3rd lugs of the switch as shown; connect the white lead of the middle pup to the 2nd lug, and tape off the red and green leads (soldered together). Connect the bare and black/shield leads to ground.

It's basically the same as single coil wiring - you just have to choose the correct leads for the middle pup.

I assume you know you may need to re-route the pickup cavities in the guitar, unless it has a swimming pool route (for all humbuckers) already.

[Jerome Hess]

just an FYI, I have ordered that same wiring harness from amazon (I have a prime membership so why not right?)

1) they are the smaller knock off pots
2) the soldering is good the wiring is a little on the thin side
3) the runs are a good length so you may have extra wire coiled in the body
4) MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL - it ships from CHINA (yes I know what the small print says, trust me I ordered 2 sets one prime one not, they arrived w/in 3 days of each other) AVERAGE SHIP TIME IS 3 WEEKS!

you can complain to amazon, and the vendor will offer you a discount, but when you look at other wiring harnesses and see that they are $35, you figure to deal with it.

you BETTER bets:

1) get one from GFS: http://www.guitarfetish.com/search.asp? ... ng+harness yes its more expensive, but its only a week, and they have nicer stuff

2) wire it yourself. the BEST way to LEARN. Im color blind and so its VERY tough for me, BUT foillowing the wiring diagrams on Seymour Duncan are a winner every time.


BTW: to close the loop on amazon. neither of the wiring harnesses worked out of the box. In an effort to save A wire, they try a common ground, that's a bad idea.

[Eric Baack]

and GFS has pretty good service as well. They stand behind their stuff.

[Ryan Guiney]

Thanks for the replies.

I have both wiring kits in hand. The one with the larger pots are only 250k pots, and I have read to use 500k pots when installing humbuckers. The Deluxe kit was already shipped when I noticed that, so I ordered the cheaper one. I noticed it was the mini pots when it arrived. I think between the two I will have enough items.

So for the two zebra humbuckers, it looks like I will follow the wiring for a single coil, and for the rail humbucker I will follow the wiring for how the middle one would be done in a setup with three of those. If I am writing this wrong, I plan to use the links provided as suggestions as a guide and reference them all as needed.

[Peter Wilcox]

In the SD link I posted it looks like the middle pickup is wired with the two coils in parallel - the way I suggested has them in series, the way the zebras are presumably internally wired. You can try it either way, but if you do it in parallel you'll have to determine the polarity of each coil, since the lead colors seem to have different connections. Also, by doing it in series the volume will probably be a better match to the zebras.

Additionally, you might want to check the polarity of each pickup (if you have a multimeter), to make sure they are all in phase before you connect them.
http://www.guitar-repairs.co.uk/guitar_ ... y_test.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UfxQBhqen8

[Ryan Guiney]

Thank you all for your prompt assistance in this project.

I have it put together and the pickups are appear to be working correctly. Testing it with a screwdriver across the poles the pickups all see to be working, however, the Middle pickup which is the dual rails humbucker seems to be audible in all 5 posistions, but more so in the 3 center that use it. When in the 2 and 4 position if I touch it with my finger I hear a small buzz.. If I put it in the center position that is just that pickup and touch it with my finger, I get a louder buzz.. I am curious if I need to rewire that pickup or do/ check something else to it before I put the strings on the guitar. I don't want to have to waste the strings.

[Ryan Guiney]

Here are some picks of the build progress.


Here is a video of the buzzing issue I was referring to.
https://youtu.be/5ITDJzG19AY

[Peter Wilcox]

I wouldn't worry about the buzz at this point, as your body is acting as an antenna for any EM energy nearby. You won't be touching the pickups when you play, and the strings should be grounded. You should shield the control and pickup cavities with foil if not already done.

You might as well string it up. You should be able to get the pickguard and attached electronics off of the guitar if you have to make changes, by slacking the strings, or in the worst case by removing them from the tuners. The hard part about putting used strings back on a strat is getting the curly-Q tuner ends back through the bridge.