Battery box on a Tele - advice sought

CasperCaster

I am finally getting around to installing a set of Graphtech Ghost saddles and the associated preamp into my long suffering Tele. Initially I thought about housing the battery in the control cavity or under the pickguard, but in the long term I know that these locations aren't ideal as it's hardly quick access and eventually the wood will no longer hold the woodscrews. So, whilst everything is in pieces, where is a good place for me to put a battery box? As the wiring needs to run via the jack socket (to switch the preamp on and off) I thought about locating the battery box on the back of the guitar somewhere behind the bridge but close to the tone control end of the control cavity. However, having looked at a few images on the web it seems that in instruments fitted with the Fishman Power Bridge, Fender put the battery box on the back of the guitar in an area behind the pickguard near to the switch end of the control cavity. What are the pros and cons of the two potential locations? And what battery boxes do people prefer? The Gotoh one seems to be readily available but I've seen a few others as well.

Edit: having looked at more images on the web, it seems that Fender also used the location that I have proposed - perhaps changed at some point in time, or US versus Mexican manufacture? 

Cheers, CasperCaster.

Funkfingers

What pickups does your Tele have? How is the body routed?

ICBM

I would put it under the control plate or the pickguard. You don't need to change the battery very often, and if the screw threads in the wood strip they're easy to repair.

Plastic battery holders often break, as well as being ugly.

WezV

have you tested where the pre-amp is going to go too?  You can run out of space in a tele control cavity pretty quickly.

I would just go under the main plate as long as the neck pickup isn't scratch plate mounted.   If you are worried about the wood you could use push in inserts rather than screwing directly into the wood.   Honestly though, it will be fine without

CasperCaster

Hi all, thanks for your input so far. To answer a couple of queries the body 'was' routed traditionally (it's a white blond Squier CV Tele with a pine body). However, I've consolidated two projects into one, so I've routed it to take Filtertrons - I had a Cabronita and whilst I loved the sound the control arrangement didn't work for me, hence this project. The bridge is a flat plate TV Jones six saddle Filtertron/Tele bridge. I'll need to drill it so I can pass the wires from each saddle through the bridge (with care the plugs can be removed from the ends of each wire with a pin), and there will be further routing to be done under the bridge to accommodate the piezo wiring and the bus block thing that they plug into. I'll also rebate the control cavity as I have on other Teles, so I can easily accommodate a Superswitch (pickups are 4-wire and I want to try some wiring ideas which may or may not work!) . The preamp is tiny but I might extend the area of the rebate in the control cavity so the preamp can be tucked out of the way. Which just leaves the battery -it might also fit in the control cavity, but I'm doubtful. I had thought about using threaded inserts and machine screws for the control plate, but I think the inserts would extend beyond the perimeter of the control plate and be visible. Plus, taking off the control plate, however infrequently, doesn't appeal given the wiring hell which will be lurking underneath (Superswitch, piezo volume, passive volume and tone concentric, piezo on/mix/off toggle switch, piezo preamp). For reference the rebate on my other Tele makes the cavity about 7mm wider in the switch area)
https://i.imgur.com/0qQgtiS.jpg
To date the Tele look like this. It currently has regular Graphtech saddles installed so I can set the intonation before committing to drilling the bridge plate.
https://i.imgur.com/fdBekHq.jpg