Crackly guitar electrics

ICBM

What type of bridge does it have and how is the ground wire connected to it?

Does disconnecting the ground wire stop the crackle, even if it then causes buzz?

It's unlikely you're overheating every pot and damaging it in the same way.

Stop putting new components in until you've identified the source of the problem. Whatever is causing it is one of the things you *haven't* changed.

You say you've changed the jack, so it isn't that either. Connect *one* pickup to the jack - no pots, no earth wire. Does it still crackle? If yes, it's the pickup. Or some outside source of noise.

nutbox

I tried connecting the pups up to the jack with the wilkinson pup and it still crackled so that's what made me change them to some from my prs which were fine in that ,but they still crackled lol. The bridge is a tune o matic and I think it's connected to the posts. Cheers dazz

ICBM

PICKUPS

If it still crackles with just one pickup connected and the bridge wire, disconnect the bridge wire. It's got to be something about one of those three things. You can probably eliminate the pickup by trying the other one *on its own*, since it's unlikely both would have the same fault.

You really have to go through this sort of thing logically if it doesn't respond to simple fixes.

normula1

a few years I had an intermittent crackle in my valve power amp that took me ages to find. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, once I'd eliminated everything else, however unlikely it seems I found that the noise was caused by an interconnecting wire. And no it wasn't a dry joint. The wire was 50 odd years old though

nutbox

The thing is it doesn't do it with any other guitar so it can't be that.
I've changed the pots , the pickups , wire, Jack socket, the only things that are original are the switch and bridge ground wire.

normula1

so what happens if you connect a pickup directly to the output jack with nothing else connected

nutbox

Still crackles on the willo but I haven't tried with the prs pups because they were fine in the guitar they come from .but I shall try

ICBM

Don't put the other pickups back in it. Please just do this the simple way! You'll be going round the houses forever if you keep changing things without finding the cause of the problem.

Connect ONE pickup - NOT BOTH - directly to the output jack.

Does it crackle?

If yes, disconnect that pickup and connect JUST THE OTHER PICKUP directly to the jack.

If it still crackles it isn't the pickups because both pickups will not have an identical fault.

Don't connect any pots or the switch, and DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE.

If it still crackles with either pickup, it's either the jack (but not if you've already changed that, for the same reason), the bridge ground wire, or something else - eg something which is causing a static crackle.


And if you call them "pups" again I'll stop trying to help you .

streethawk

It's the bridge ground wire. 

Or .... the switch. 

Sarge

Hang on, it's not one of these is it?

http://s017.radikal.ru/i422/1409/0d/2b0febd95a7f.jpg