tapped humbuckers

hi folks. ive got a problem. ive got an unbranded semi acoustic that im trying to do up. ive bought a pair of coil tapped humbuckers to go in it, each with its own seperate tap switch ( not the pot type) and id like any help with how to wire it all together. the pickups have 4 wires, a thick black one (earth i presume) , a thin black one (signal?) and a red wire and a white wire soldered together. i have 2 spdt switches that i need to fit into the body too. how do i ground the bridge, ive seen that mentioned somewhere. can someone please tell me how to wire this lot together. im a total noob at guitar wiring but have always fancied having a try. im replacing all the electrics in it,switches, p/up selector, pots, everything! the body is not too bad but the hardware on it was cr*p, hence the rewire. any assistance will be very gratefully accepted. many thanks. darren

To coil tap you'll need a DPDT for each humbucker, Wiring up isn't too difficult, what brand are your pickups? most companies like changing their wiring colours to suit themselves.

Grounding to the bridge is just the main ground wire from the electrics being soldered to the underside of the bridge, done properly and it'll stop your guitar humming everytime you touch something metal.

If you let me know what p/up switch your using, how many tone & volume pots etc i can knock up a simple wiring diagram for you.

Also if this is your first time doing any soldering, definitely get some practice in before hand, it will help a lot


Tom,
Admin.

hi tom. the pickups are detonator humbuckers, i bought them from axesrus. cheapie things, i know, but they will do the job. im using 1 tone and 1 vol pot with 2 spdt switches. any good?

No problem, i'll get something done for you, might be a few days as i'm away until tuesday night but i'll get it done at some point

thanks very much tom, id love to be able to wire this thing myself. would love to learn all about guitar wiring etc, guess this is the first step. very grateful mate

I'll get that diagram done tonight now I'm back, got a bit of time to get some extra stuff done.

I'll start a wiring diagram thread or sticky or something in the next few days with a few
different diagrams which we can build up over time.

cheers mate. have got some spare time now to start on the guitar. any help, hints, suggestions will be gratefully accepted. very kind of you.

Here you are.



As you said this is your first time so i'll break it right down.

I got the wire colours off of Axesrus so the green is green (+) , red is red, the black which comes from the pickup is the black and silver (which i'd say is your thick black one?) and i made the white wire the light grey. From your original post i'd say the thin black one is the same as the green one.

You will need DPDT switches instead of the SPST you have, also need a .47 capacitor, which you may already have from your old setup. Although they're not hard to get a hold of, most guitar places will sell them.

You will also need to wire in the input jack and pickup switch (Top right of the diagram) as is shown in the diagram.

The thick black spots on the back of each pot are where all the wires which go there are soldered, you will then need to run a wire as shown to the back of your bridge which will ground it.

Also take note of what wire goes where on the input jack, as there is an inner ring and outer ring, the wire for the outer ring comes from the volume pot.

Also if you hadn't guessed, the rectangles with the 6 black spots on the back are the DPDT switches.

It can be a little confusing if you havn't done this before so don't be afraid to ask again if you need to, i hope this helps
Don't think i've missed anything but if anyone else wants to speak up please do

hi. that seems fairly simple to follow ( itll need to be ...lol) will try it this weekend. thanks for your time and patience mate. my best regards. darren

Yeah it not too bad, its not the clearest of drawings but the best i can come up with anyway haha.

The way i built my way up to customising and what not was doing the simple diagrams (in your case it would be as it is without the switches and the red and white wires taped together). Making sure that worked, and then doing the customising to that then.
All depends on what method you prefer.

sounds good to me tom. have just ordered the dpdt switches from ebay. will do as much as i can without them, then finish off when they come. its a daunting thing, guitar electrics, to the beginner, but i hope to pick it up. i would love to learn enough to do this from home as a profession but ive a long long long way to go yet. my most sincere thanks to you for your help on this subject. no doubt i'll post more up on the site as my next project is my ibanez roadstar rs440 series 11. gonna put an artec hot rail humbucker on it as well as 2 jailhouse rail single coil humbuckers. will use a new scratchplate as i would like to keep all the original parts in good condition. shame about the body tho. bought it from a guitar tutor so its had a hard life ( lots of dents n scratches, but thats another project for the future lol). youve been a great help with the one im doing now, i cant thank you enough. my best wishes to you and everyone on here.

I know what you mean, i havn't done it for long, only started tinkering a couple of years ago, done odd jobs for a few mates and thats as far as its gone. You will at least be able to get the basic set up done without the switches. If your drilling into your guitar which you mentioned you are, take care not to go to quickly or anything as it will crack the paintwork, always helps to put a little bit of that low-tak tape around where your drilling.

Post away with your projects, there'll be a couple of mine going up soon, got a nice one to start in a couple of weeks, just want to plan everything out before i start buying bits and bobs.

Glad i can be of help

i have looked at the reviews of the iron gear jailhouse rail single coil size humbuckers, they sound really good. excellent reviews on them. same with the artec alnico 5 hot rail humbuckers too. looking forward to seeing if they are as good as they say. may well ask for advice on someone local (ish) who does guitar body repairs, spray jobs etc. im in the newcastle upon tyne area btw. let you know how the semi acoustic turns out. thanks again tom.

I've only ever heard good things about iron gear pickups, never personally used them though, i might get a couple and see what they're like at some point, nearly brought some a while back but went for something else. Looking back i have no idea why haha.

yeah, bought naff gear too many times so now i check as many reviews as poss. im just gonna get the middle and neck rails to go with the artec alnico 5's (good reviews too). gonna wire the rails thru a switch each, too (depending on how successful i am with the semi ). any further hints, tips, suggestions, etc, would be most helpful. id love to work from home doing wire ups as i love doing stuff like that. tinkering etc. maybe you could do a forum for people new to tinkering with guitars, set ups, adjustments, customising, wiring etc, going thru it in simple terms for us noobs. that would be cool as ive been on loads of sites looking up this sort of thing, but they all seem to speak as if people know a fair bit already. perhaps a daily or weekly tutorial. what do you think?

Yeah that would be a good idea actually, I could just try and list everything as simple as possible and explain every term etc, i remember when i first started and i can remember how hard it was going from here to there to find every term and what not.
I'll see what i can come up with tomorrow and put something together, a start at least.
Keep an eye out in the tutorials section over the next couple of days

i most certainly will, tom mate. we only have 2 or 3 guitar doctors in the north east and theyre always very busy. id love to be able to do it myself as it would save me a boatload of cash too.

Hi, Tom,

Just a quick query. Jojimbo1 said he already had SPDT switches and you said he needed DPDT switches, but your wiring diagram only uses one of the poles on each switch. Am I reading the diagram wrong? I know you need DPDT for phase switching, but couldn't he have gotten away with the SPDTs for coil tap?

Screaming Dave

Think you may be right as it goes. I've just done that diagram as i've always thought it to be and have done myself.
One of those things i've never picked up on, Although i've never personally tried it but looking over it i can see no reason why not.

Apologies to yojimbo1 if it does work, I can't see why it wouldn't looking over it, just the way i've always been taught. Switches will always come in handy when with guitars anyway.

It'll always be there for when a series/parallel switch is needed. You can never have too many poles!

i had wondered about that tom, i just thought there must be a reason for it to be dpdt instead. told you i was a noob with this lark. one final question on the wiring diagram you did for me, which of the wires are shielded, ie :- which runs of signal wire need to made using shielded cable. sorry to be a nuisance mate. my bad

Well it was me aswell, its just always the way i've done it, sorry again.

If your using humbuckers, there's probably no need to use shielded wire, it only really makes a noticeable difference if your using single coils. If you've got some it won't hurt to use it going to the output jack and the ground to the bridge, although there's no need to buy it especially if you don't already have it. My HSS (Humbucker, single coil, single coil) strat that i built has no shielded cable and there's no hum from that at all, even when the single coils are selected.
I use some copper shielding in a couple of my guitar, just line around the pickups, although its not necessary, and doesn't make too much difference, but again its just something i've always done.

Thanks,
Tom.

well, im stuck on something else now. ive got a yamaha erg121 which has H/S/H configuration. ive replaced the single coil with a s/c sized dual rail humbucker. ive also installed a mini tap switch between the tone and vol pots ( these are push pull pots to tap the two h/b's ) . the two pots have a 0.22 sprague cappy linking them. the ground from the bridge is connected to a wire which seems to go to the jack socket. it is not connected to anything else, should it be? also, do i need a cappy for the centre pickup as its a h/b? do i need to ground the mini tap switch ( dpdt format) ? also also, where do i ground the centre pickup? sorry to be a noob, but me kitchen tables up to the eyes in tools, spare bits, new locking tuners etc. will get me as kicked off me folks if i dont get it sorted sharpish like. lol. many thanks for the help with my last project, it sounds awesome and your help was invaluable. nice one tom and co.

The earth from the bridge only needs to be connected to one earth point. The cap is part of the tone circuit. You shouldn't necessarily need a cap for any of the other pickups, as the tone control will be common to all the pickups on that guitar, I think. The only other cap you might want would be a treble bleed cap, which is a low value cap short circuiting the volume control. Usually as you back off the volume control a touch, the first to go to earth are the very high frequencies, meaning the sound also dulls somewhat as well as reducing in volume. The treble bleed cap allows the very high frequencies to go straight to the output meaning you don't get that dulling of the sound until the vol is backed off quite a way, when the bleed effect stops happening, for some reason.

can you tell where it connect the earth from the new pickup. im not sure mate