Tele Pickup Installation - What have I done?!

Panama_Jack666

So... First off, I'm just a nutter with a soldering iron!

I bought a 2016 roadworn telecaster which the previous owner put a hot rail in the bridge position.

I've removed the hot rail and replaced the pot which was also "upgraded" to a push pull jobby. The new pot is a 250k audio pot.

Because of the state of the wiring before, it made it quite difficult to follow a wiring diagram. I have got closeish...

What I'm aiming for is a traditional 3 way position setup. Bridge, bridge & neck and neck.

Everything is working but the middle position sounds out if phase - Peter Green! What have I done?

I suspect it's something to do with the red wire on the picture below but I actually don't have a clue!

Help!

https://imgur.com/a/mHqVG

ICBM

You haven't done anything wrong, but the pickups are most likely out of phase.

If that's a vintage-style Tele bridge pickup with a baseplate, fixing this is a bit more tricky - you can't just swap the yellow and black wires because that will make the bridge and strings 'hot', and you can't do it on the neck pickup either because of the cover.

What you need to do is either: swap the yellow and black wires at the pickup end, including the link wire to the baseplate. This is a bit risky if you're not experienced, there's a risk of damaging the coil. Or: safer, cut the link wire, swap the yellow and black wires at the controls, and add a new separate ground wire to the bridge - just trap it under the plate.

You also haven't wired up the volume pot right, the unused terminal needs to be grounded or it won't turn the volume down much. The simplest way to do that is bend down your bare ground wire between the two pots and solder that to it.

For what it's worth it's also better practice to connect the ground wire from the jack to the volume pot not the tone pot, and twist it together with the white wire, this will reduce noise a bit.

Hope that helps!

Panama_Jack666

ICBM said:

You haven't done anything wrong, but the pickups are most likely out of phase.

If that's a vintage-style Tele bridge pickup with a baseplate, fixing this is a bit more tricky - you can't just swap the yellow and black wires because that will make the bridge and strings 'hot', and you can't do it on the neck pickup either because of the cover.

What you need to do is either: swap the yellow and black wires at the pickup end, including the link wire to the baseplate. This is a bit risky if you're not experienced, there's a risk of damaging the coil. Or: safer, cut the link wire, swap the yellow and black wires at the controls, and add a new separate ground wire to the bridge - just trap it under the plate.

You also haven't wired up the volume pot right, the unused terminal needs to be grounded or it won't turn the volume down much. The simplest way to do that is bend down your bare ground wire between the two pots and solder that to it.

For what it's worth it's also better practice to connect the ground wire from the jack to the volume pot not the tone pot, and twist it together with the white wire, this will reduce noise a bit.

Hope that helps!

Thanks so much for that @icbm - incredibly useful!

The wiring was a right mess before I got my hands on it, including the ground wire to the tone pot. All work courtesy of PMT in Birmingham apparently!

What you have said makes sense. Couple of questions though!

1.) Already got the ground wire running under the bridge (soldered to the vol pot). So just a case of swapping the yellow and black (actually blue in this case) wire and cutting the link wire... Is that the red one in the image? Sorry, possibly quite an obvious question! I just want to be 100% clear on what I need to do!

2.) You are correct that it's a vintage style bridge pickup with baseplate. SD Antiquity! What's making the pickups out of phase with each other? Just for my own knowledge.

Cheers for the heads up with the open terminal on the vol pot. I will fix that at the same time as fixing the out of phase issue!

robinbowes

Fetch it over, if you get stuck.

R.

ICBM

Panama_Jack666 said:

1.) Already got the ground wire running under the bridge (soldered to the vol pot). So just a case of swapping the yellow and black (actually blue in this case) wire and cutting the link wire... Is that the red one in the image? Sorry, possibly quite an obvious question! I just want to be 100% clear on what I need to do!

The link wire is on the bottom of the pickup - unfortunately you'll need to have the bridge off again…

You will see a short bare wire going from the blue wire eyelet to the baseplate. Cut it as close as possible to the eyelet and bend it back out of the way - don't remove it entirely in case you ever want to put it back for any reason, it's hard to solder onto the baseplate.

Don't cut the red wire, that's how the whole signal gets from the switch to the pots .

Panama_Jack666 said:

2.) You are correct that it's a vintage style bridge pickup with baseplate. SD Antiquity! What's making the pickups out of phase with each other? Just for my own knowledge.

They just are - it depends on the magnet polarity and the coil winding direction. Different companies have different ideas about pickup polarity - and sometimes it changes over time. The Duncan will be the same as how Fender did them in the 1950s/60s, but the modern Fender pickups (if that's what the neck is) must be the opposite. So if the magnet is the opposite polarity, you need to connect the coil the other way round as well to keep the phase the same.

If you're lucky, the result will be hum cancelling in the middle position - the Duncan Antiquities are when you use a pair of them, but I don't know which pickup is reverse polarity. This is what "RWRP" - reverse wound, reverse polarity - means, it's a way of cancelling hum with two single coils when it's done intentionally.

Panama_Jack666

Cheers guys!

I didn't have a clue about polarity and phase before today (if you couldn't tell!) but I'm up to speed now. Spent a large portion of my day trying to learn a bit more so thank you for the advice ICBM.

Partially this process was about learning for me because I can do all the other basic maintenance stuff, just never touched electrics before.

I'm certain my the Fender Neck (tex mex in this case) is the opposite polarity to the bridge. 

The question is now... Do I buy a new neck pup (antiquity) or make do?!

Think I got it all in hand now Rob but thanks for asking. I really appreciate it!

ICBM

Panama_Jack666 said:

I'm certain my the Fender Neck (tex mex in this case) is the opposite polarity to the bridge. 

The question is now... Do I buy a new neck pup (antiquity) or make do?!

If it's the opposite magnetic polarity, it's actually better because then you get hum cancellation in the middle position when the pickups are in phase - the only issue is the wiring direction of the coil and you can fix that easily.

The Antiquity neck pickup is very nice too though...

Panama_Jack666

Calling @ICBM

I never actually got round to doing that work that was mentioned. Just giving it a crack now.

Went to give the pickup the snip and I noticed some soldering underneath. I assume this is a fix where someone has done this before? So now just a case of unsoldering that?

http://i.imgur.com/2AVqDc9.jpg

Funkfingers

The grey vulcanised fibreboard baseplate of your Duncan pickup suggests that is an Antiquity II.

On Duncan Antiquity pickups for Stratocaster, the Fifties style Ants have the opposite magnetic polarity to the Sixties style Ant IIs. I can not remember whether this is also true of the Telecaster models. (The information disappeared a few years ago after the SD web site was redesigned by an outside contractor.) 

Reversing the winding direction by snipping the jumper connection from the metal base plate to the coil start soldering eyelet is an incomplete solution. The plate still needs to be grounded. Normally, the plate forms part of the grounding path between the vintage bridge and the volume pot chassis.

Panama_Jack666

Funkfingers said:

The grey vulcanised fibreboard baseplate of your Duncan pickup suggests that is an Antiquity II.

On Duncan Antiquity pickups for Stratocaster, the Fifties style Ants have the opposite magnetic polarity to the Sixties style Ant IIs. I can not remember whether this is also true of the Telecaster models. (The information disappeared a few years ago after the SD web site was redesigned by an outside contractor.) 

Reversing the winding direction by snipping the jumper connection from the metal base plate to the coil start soldering eyelet is an incomplete solution. The plate still needs to be grounded. Normally, the plate forms part of the grounding path between the vintage bridge and the volume pot chassis.

Cheers for the info. If I have a wire trapped between the base plate and the body which is soldered to the volume pot, that should ground it no?

Panama_Jack666

Issue sorted I think (hope!)

ICBM

Yes - snipping the link wire (or mess of soldering!) and separately grounding the bridge will work, because now the baseplate is grounded via the bridge instead of the other way round.

Panama_Jack666

Annnnnnnd I'm re-bumping this! I'm pretty slow at doing this stuff!

Unnsoldered the mess but without the ground wire to the bridge (I was mistaken). It was still out of phase. Would adding the ground fix my issue? Or would adding the ground wire just make it quieter?

Calling @icbm and @ ;;

Thank you!

ICBM

You need to ground the bridge separately, then you can reverse the wires to the bridge pickup which will solve the phase problem. The bridge must not be grounded via the pickup as well or it will mute the output when the bridge pickup is selected.

Grounding the bridge via the pickup as Fender intended is neat, but it can cause problems...

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

Grounding the bridge via the pickup ... 

... is cheap. Typical penny pinching Leo Fender!

Panama_Jack666

Ok! After re-reading everything 5 times. I think I almost have it! I'll report back tomorrow. 

As ever, I owe you my eternal gratitude and many beers.

OilCityPickups

be aware ... my phone query answer service is not just for folks who use my pickups ... if you have a pickup fitting issue ... phone me at Oil City Pickups 0208 257 0281  and I'll do my best to help you 

Panama_Jack666

TheGuitarWeasel said:

be aware ... my phone query answer service is not just for folks who use my pickups ... if you have a pickup fitting issue ... phone me at Oil City Pickups 0208 257 0281  and I'll do my best to help you 

I didn't know this! Cheers Ash!

I was actually considering pulling the neck pu out and getting you wind me one the same as the SD to fix this issue!

Will try one last time to sort this first, if I fail then I'll give you a call!

robinbowes

Bring it round some time - I'll have a look at it for you.

OilCityPickups

Panama_Jack666 said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

be aware ... my phone query answer service is not just for folks who use my pickups ... if you have a pickup fitting issue ... phone me at Oil City Pickups 0208 257 0281  and I'll do my best to help you 

I didn't know this! Cheers Ash!

I was actually considering pulling the neck pu out and getting you wind me one the same as the SD to fix this issue!

Will try one last time to sort this first, if I fail then I'll give you a call!

As the Autumn pickup swapping season comes around I get at least one 'help' phone call a day ... don't be shy, you'll be in good company. I'm going to do a pickup phase 101 'how to' article soon. Many folks don't know that if the worst comes to the worst we (and most good pickup makers/repairers) can re polarise their Fender style single coil pickup magnets to the opposite polarity pretty easily ... though with a Tele bridge pickup this does involve removing the baseplate and re potting. 

ICBM

Slight hijack... a question for @TheGuitarWeasel - on a Tele, do you think the pickups are close enough together for there to be a noticeable difference between a RWRP pair and standard? The consensus seems to be that there is with a Strat middle pickup, and with two P90s, but perhaps not with two humbuckers with reverse polarity. P90s will be more affected because the magnetic fields extend a long way sideways out of the pickups, but Tele pickups should be much less so...

Just curious! My gut feeling is that there isn't much difference, but I haven't compared it accurately like I have with a Strat.