Seymour Duncan Trembucker wiring issue

sixstringsupplies

Hi all,

Verrrry new to this forum and have been reading and following various threads the past couple of weeks before finally getting involved. (so hi all!)

I'm really hoping to tap into the wealth of knowledge in this forum. (particularly regarding pickup wiring)

I have a customer who purchased a LPJ wiring kit from my company a few weeks ago

He is rewiring his LPJ (don't know if its Gibson or a copy)

Anyway, he rings this afternoon to say that he cant get it to work as intended. Now i work with guitar electronics and do LPJ harness weekly on eBay/website etc...but I'm stumped on this one- He purchased a Seymour Duncan Trembucker, 2nd hand off eBay which he wants to install.

Now SD HB's come with 4 lead wires - red, white, green and black. So normally you would solder and tape the red/white together, green goes to the pot casing as the ground and black is the hot output. (according to the SD website)

However, he can only get it to work when he solders the white wire to the volume pot lug, with the black and red just hanging loosely in the control cavity.

I've always worked on the assumption that black for ground, white for hot, but this is the way the SD website states.

I have very little experience with SD pickups - has anyone ever come across something similar? he is adamant that the rest of his soldering is fine and he is a regular customer who knows enough about guitar wiring.

Is it possible the wires are the wrong way round (from the SD factory) or more likely, as I suspect, the pickup is faulty, being 2nd hand off eBay.

Logic tells me the hot output (black) isn't connected to the pickup properly....but that makes no sense as the white works as an output.

Any pickup makers who know of a potential issue? The fact that white works and black doesn't would tell me that the white is actually the output and black is the ground...

Many thanks for any help.

ICBM

Sounds like the pickup is wired incorrectly - even a short wouldn't allow it to work with green ground and white hot without red or black connected, since they should be on opposite coils.

What he should do is meter between all five wires (including the bare shield) and find out what is connected to, and/or shorted to, what - then it should be possible to work out what to do.

sixstringsupplies

Thanks @ICBM ;- thought it would be best to check here for a second opinion before getting back to him but I found it inconceivable that an SD pickup could be wired incorrectly. I guess it can happen. Thanks again.

ICBM

sixstringsupplies said:

Thanks @ICBM ;- thought it would be best to check here for a second opinion before getting back to him but I found it inconceivable that an SD pickup could be wired incorrectly. I guess it can happen. Thanks again.

Anything can happen on a second hand pickup - I've had two I can think of, one had been rewired in (from memory) Dimarzio colour coding, and the other had an internal short from the white wire to the shield. Both could be wired to work correctly by working out what was what.

This one sounds worse given that it works with two wires disconnected - unless it's then operating as just a single coil and the other is damaged, which is possible.

sixstringsupplies

ICBM said:

sixstringsupplies said:

Thanks @ICBM ;- thought it would be best to check here for a second opinion before getting back to him but I found it inconceivable that an SD pickup could be wired incorrectly. I guess it can happen. Thanks again.

Anything can happen on a second hand pickup - I've had two I can think of, one had been rewired in (from memory) Dimarzio colour coding, and the other had an internal short from the white wire to the shield. Both could be wired to work correctly by working out what was what.

This one sounds worse given that it works with two wires disconnected - unless it's then operating as just a single coil and the other is damaged, which is possible.

Its funny you mention it operating as a single coil - he tried to connect it with 3 different pots, (a push pull, an epiphone and and a regular CTS pot. With the epiphone pot it sounded very thin, a bit like it had been coil split, but with the CTS pot wired exactly the same, it sounded a lot beefier. Yet when he carries out the screwdriver test, both coils seem to work, and there is no hum/feedback. Anyway, ive sent him the link to this forum thread - last time we spoke he decided to take the pickup apart as we deducted it can only be faulty pickup wiring.

Either way its a strange one. When he gets back to me i'll let you know!