ES-355 - no signal from neck pickup ARGHHHHH

stickyfiddle

Guitar is recently rewired and has been working perfectly until 2 days ago.

Switch looks fine and I can see air between the ground and signal wires, so 99% sure it's not switch-related. 

Bridge pickup works fine. 

Neck pickup total dead and no sound regardless of control positions. 

Middle selection is dead when neck volume is full up, but lets bridge pickup signal through if you turn it down to 9 or below, and works like a volume control, with silence again at zero, as normal. 

It's standard modern wiring, not 50s. The one thing to note is I wired it on a "long leash", so I could change pickups in future without getting the loom out, so there is a wired connection directly under the neck pickup with a bunch of neck pickup wire coiled up under there. I'm 99% sure I heatshrinked the hot lead but there is a possibility that there could be a short under there rather than at the pots. This is also the only thing I can think that could have moved just by being used in the normal course of playing the thing. 

So clearly there's a short somewhere? Do I need to get the wiring out again, or might it just be a short at the pickup end... Or is a dead pickup possible? 

stickyfiddle

Tagging a couple of folks who are probably going to be quicker on this than me... @OilCityPickups @icbm  

guitarmangler

Unlikely to be a dead pickup, more likely to be wiring or pot. Time to get the fishing line out again ! 

guitargeek62

guitarmangler said:

Unlikely to be a dead pickup, more likely to be wiring or pot. Time to get the fishing line out again ! 

This - could be a hard-to-see cold joint, or a stray hair-strand of wire/solder that's shorted it out perhaps.

The middle position is working as I'd expect btw if there's an issue with the neck pickup or it's pots/wiring. It could be a dead pickup, but rule out the simple things first.

stickyfiddle

Ta both. I agree the pickup itself is v unlikely. Am hoping it's just the wiring under the pickup and not at the volume control. I am mutely not in the mood to get the tubing out again... 

guitargeek62

Best of luck, Mike - it's a test of patience at times!

It's for this reason that I much prefer the ES-333 / Lucille approach of having a cavity control cover on thinlines! My new builds will likely have them too, although PRS (and old Yamahas) had a nice solution of having a large jack plate that gives pretty great side-access too with less polarising stigma about the optics on the rear of an extra cover there!  

stickyfiddle

Ok... just had a meeting cancelled that gave me a few mins to have a poke about. 

I undid the neck pickup surround and jiggled it. Instantly back to life, so that means something in there is shorting, which is a pain, but miles less of a pain than the loom needing anything. I just need to sort that and insulate it better than I had before, then I'm sorted.

THANK GOD!! 

Still a strings-off job but will be the work of <60 mins rather than a whole evening

guitargeek62

stickyfiddle said:

Still a strings-off job but will be the work of <60 mins rather than a whole evening

stickyfiddle

guitargeek62 said:

stickyfiddle said:

Still a strings-off job but will be the work of <60 mins rather than a whole evening

HA! 

Fixed it

I was able to get it out without removing strings (YAY!)  

Basically it's 100% on me - I'd rushed the splice job first time around in an effort to get it done late at night. This time I'd done the inner joint as neatly as possible, heatshrinked that with way more overlap than before, run 2 wires around the outside to connect up the braiding, and then wrapped that in a tight bundle secured with electrical tape so the joint can't move at all relative to the ends of the wire. I don't think I can do much better... 

Anyway, for now it's working... 

Funkfingers

stickyfiddle said:  

I'd rushed the splice job

Ugly Splice (AKA Victoria).

sweepy

I use heatshrink tubing for drawing the pots through the body of a 335 etc, lot easier than fishing line