Installing active pickups into a passive guitar with zero experience? Madness or great fun?

Crazyblue1779

I have an LTD EC-256 which is rapidly turning into a bit of a practice / project guitar ( so I can try stuff without messing up my main instrument). 

I’m using it because it’s cheap enough that I’m not overly concerned if I really f**k something up, but it’s also not a bad wee guitar for the price. 

I’ve zero experience but I want to learn and so far I’ve found that I enjoy the tinkering side of things. 

So I’m going to teach myself to replace passive pickups by practicing on it, but then I thought once I have that down, it might be fun to throw some actives in there too. 

I know this requires replacing pretty much everything (I think).  So is it something that an enthusiastic but clueless person should attempt?

Or am I asking for a world of headaches and frustration?

abw1989

If anything, it might be easier. A lot of the active systems are solder-less with quick connectors for the most part; with soldered connections being at the jack and the switch.

thecolourbox

I don't know how to fit normal pickups but I've had two lots of EMGs now in different guitars (Tele set in a Tele and Het Set in a crap kit built SG) and generally they are pretty easy to install as they are solderless.

The SG was slightly complicated by not including a solderless switch so I had to ask somebody to do that for me. The Tele set was slightly complicated by (if i recall correctly) the cavity not being big enough for the oversized solderless wiring and the jack plate being too small. But neither of these were as hard to me as trying to solder in proper pickups

skunkwerx

Just different I think. Not particularly harder unless you find the battery wont fit isolated in the control cavity.. then you’ll have some routing to do.. 

Make a space big enough and you could play with the 18v mod too. Well if they’re Emg’s going in

Grumpyrocker

I fitted Iron Gear active pickups in a Vintage SG copy. Managed to squeeze the battery into the control cavity, but I put it in a little ziplock bag so it didn't make contact where it shouldn't. 

skullfunkerry

I have managed to replace pickups in a couple of guitars but I'm pretty clueless with it all and I'm not very good at soldering, but I fitted an EMG 81/60 set in a Jackson Kelly a few years ago with no problems at all. The whole kit is solderless, and their instructions are excellent. The only issues I had were that the control cavity was pretty small to get everything into, and the hole the pickup cable went through wasn't quite wide enough, as the EMG wires had the connector clips on the end - I drilled it out and managed not to wreck anything though!

Funkfingers

Had an LTD EC-401W with EMG pickups.

The task is simple enough. Unsolder the stock pickups, pots and jack. Leave the toggle selector switch and connection cables in the guitar. These will be re-used. 

EMG active pickups are available with an entirely Solderless™ wiring harness. (The selector switch is connected via the EMG157c Buss board thingy.) 

My recommendation would be Fishman Fluence humbuckers. These are available in several “flavours” from Dad Blues-Rock to out and out Metal.