Pics of Shielding my Squire, please critique!

[Fire-Starter]

This was my first run at shielding one of my basses, please offer any suggestions, I am open to opinons suggestions good or bad. The description of each pic is under the pic, sorry for the not so great quailty. Thanks Here goes

1:Before I started..





I am not sure what the black coating is int the pup cavity, I am guessing some sort of spray on shielding or coating?????



2: After pics



I hope I did this right,this was my first one!





CONTROL CAVITY AFT GROUNED TO PUP CAVITY

Notice the black wires comming from each pup housing tied together and soldered here in the control cavity so all three are now grounded together





CONTROL CAVITY AFTER (edit)

Notice Audere preamp is grounded to the bass ground chassis







PUPS AFTER 2

A BIG NO NO HERE. See the copper foil laying over the top edge from the control cavity? it caused the blue led on my Audere control plate to flash on/off rapidly for aprx 3 sec, the copper caused a short to the control plate when I installed it, so I had to remove it and all was well. Heck I thought you were suppose to ground the control cavity to the control plate as well? My bad????

[Darkstrike]

Nice work!

[J. Crawford]

Looks good.

Im hoping to do this someday, for the experience.

[line6man]

That is PERFECT sheilding work...
I assume that you used the StewMac foil with the conductive adhesive, right?

Here is a picture of the shielding on my new Warmoth...
Yours look way better.

[joeyl]

I think in the case of the Audere you should not connect the shielding ground to the pickups ground, at least that how my classic 4 band module is.

[Fire-Starter]

Originally Posted by line6man

That is PERFECT sheilding work...
I assume that you used the StewMac foil with the conductive adhesive, right?

Here is a picture of the shielding on my new Warmoth...
Yours look way better.

Thanks much, not sure who it is by, but it is self adhesive foil, I got if off ebay. My only question is if I should have grounded the black wire going to the chassi bass to the other wires I grounded in the control cavity????

[Fire-Starter]

Originally Posted by joeyl

I think in the case of the Audere you should not connect the shielding ground to the pickups ground, at least that how my classic 4 band module is.

Agreed, it took me about an hour to find out why the control plate kept shorting when it was only in the cavity, once I covered the foil and then put the plate on, it stopped, so I pulled off the tape and issue solved.

[dmrogers]

Nice work. Very neat!

[lethargytartare]

Originally Posted by Fire-Starter

A BIG NO NO HERE. See the copper foil laying over the top edge from the control cavity? it caused the blue led on my Audere control plate to flash on/off rapidly for aprx 3 sec, the copper caused a short to the control plate when I installed it, so I had to remove it and all was well. Heck I thought you were suppose to ground the control cavity to the control plate as well? My bad???? [/color]

Well, if you removed all the pot-bodies-to-ground wires, you do want that tab. And I would bet that the tab didn't "cause" your preamp to go on the fritz -- it may have given the short a path to ground, but there's probably a problem somewhere else in your wiring that, now, is not noticeable. The significance is that (a) with a properly grounded control cavity, and (b) this other wiring bug fixed, you might end up with even better tone/sound/whatever.

Consider your statement "the copper caused a short to the control plate" -- think that through and ask yourself what is happening. If the control plate contacts the copper sheet, then the control plate is connected to ground. That would only be a problem if an active part of your circuit was also contacting the control plate -- and THAT is a problem since the control plate could act like an antenna, collecting noise and letting it into your signal path. If you keep the tab, basically you create a complete box around your electronics, and that whole box is shunted to ground -- so any noise that tries to get into your signal, goes to ground. Disconnect the control plate, and now anything it collects goes to the pots, and possibly into your preamp's wires.

But again, it sounds like some part of your preamp's signal path is contacting the control plate, which I doubt is intended. Correct that, and reconnect the control pate to the copper lining, and you might end up with an overall better result.

Good luck!

ltt

[line6man]

Originally Posted by Fire-Starter

Thanks much, not sure who it is by, but it is self adhesive foil, I got if off ebay. My only question is if I should have grounded the black wire going to the chassi bass to the other wires I grounded in the control cavity????

What i meant was did you have conductive adhesive, because there are no solder beads connecting the foil.

You should have a ground wire coming from the bridge, the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup, all coming together at one point, to keep the resistance as low as possible.

[notforrobots]

looks good

[Fire-Starter]

Originally Posted by line6man

What i meant was did you have conductive adhesive, because there are no solder beads connecting the foil.

You should have a ground wire coming from the bridge, the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup, all coming together at one point, to keep the resistance as low as possible.

I see, I am guessing it does have conductive adhesive, since I did take a ohm meter and measured 0 ohms when touching the side walls of each cavity to the bottom floor within that cavity.

I will in the near future ground that bridge wire to the other ground as well.

Thanks

[Fire-Starter]

Originally Posted by lethargytartare

Well, if you removed all the pot-bodies-to-ground wires, you do want that tab. And I would bet that the tab didn't "cause" your preamp to go on the fritz -- it may have given the short a path to ground, but there's probably a problem somewhere else in your wiring that, now, is not noticeable. The significance is that (a) with a properly grounded control cavity, and (b) this other wiring bug fixed, you might end up with even better tone/sound/whatever.

Consider your statement "the copper caused a short to the control plate" -- think that through and ask yourself what is happening. If the control plate contacts the copper sheet, then the control plate is connected to ground. That would only be a problem if an active part of your circuit was also contacting the control plate -- and THAT is a problem since the control plate could act like an antenna, collecting noise and letting it into your signal path. If you keep the tab, basically you create a complete box around your electronics, and that whole box is shunted to ground -- so any noise that tries to get into your signal, goes to ground. Disconnect the control plate, and now anything it collects goes to the pots, and possibly into your preamp's wires.

But again, it sounds like some part of your preamp's signal path is contacting the control plate, which I doubt is intended. Correct that, and reconnect the control pate to the copper lining, and you might end up with an overall better result.

Good luck!

ltt

What you say makes sense, I could not at the time see anything, but than again, I could have just missed it. After thinking about what you said, maybe the issue is coming from the bottom of one of the pups touching the foil If not from the actual control plate preamp so I will take the control plate out and lay it on top.
Then I will measure the voltage in the control cavity for zero volts.

Regarding my theory about the bottom of the pickups touching the foil. I noticed on these Barts they have contacts on the bottom that kind of hang down a bit, and maybe when I tightened down the four height adj screws, it caused one of the contacts to touch the copper foil in the cavity, (maybe I need more foam underneath if that is the issue or just cover them with electrical tape) I should be able to take a ohm meter and measure the foil to ground in the control cavity, with the plate removed, there should be no voltage there since it is ground, if so, it has got to be coming from one of the pups touching the foil in one of the pup cavities.

Thanks for the help. hope I am on the right track.
I will revisit this soon, and post my results.

[BlackEdition]

I just bought an Audere Audio Preamp... I have a MIM Jazz with no shielding. Do you think I should shield it to avoid hiss?

[Fire-Starter]

Originally Posted by lethargytartare

Well, if you removed all the pot-bodies-to-ground wires, you do want that tab. And I would bet that the tab didn't "cause" your preamp to go on the fritz -- it may have given the short a path to ground, but there's probably a problem somewhere else in your wiring that, now, is not noticeable. The significance is that (a) with a properly grounded control cavity, and (b) this other wiring bug fixed, you might end up with even better tone/sound/whatever.

Consider your statement "the copper caused a short to the control plate" -- think that through and ask yourself what is happening. If the control plate contacts the copper sheet, then the control plate is connected to ground. That would only be a problem if an active part of your circuit was also contacting the control plate -- and THAT is a problem since the control plate could act like an antenna, collecting noise and letting it into your signal path. If you keep the tab, basically you create a complete box around your electronics, and that whole box is shunted to ground -- so any noise that tries to get into your signal, goes to ground. Disconnect the control plate, and now anything it collects goes to the pots, and possibly into your preamp's wires.

But again, it sounds like some part of your preamp's signal path is contacting the control plate, which I doubt is intended. Correct that, and reconnect the control pate to the copper lining, and you might end up with an overall better result.

Good luck!

ltt

I found out what the issues was. Upon using my volt meter I discovered I had 4.0 volts on the bridge.

I finally figured out it was the springs on the bottom of the pups that were touching the exposed bottom of the pups and thransfering that voltage to the copper shielding underneath.

I put electrical tape on the bottom of the pups to keep the springs from touching them directly. issued solved. Now I will go back and put that copper tap from my control cavity back into place.

Thanks for the help Man

[parsons]

That looks like some great work.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by Fire-Starter

I found out what the issues was. Upon using my volt meter I discovered I had 4.0 volts on the bridge.

I finally figured out it was the springs on the bottom of the pups that were touching the exposed bottom of the pups and thransfering that voltage to the copper shielding underneath.

I put electrical tape on the bottom of the pups to keep the springs from touching them directly. issued solved. Now I will go back and put that copper tap from my control cavity back into place.

Thanks for the help Man

If your shielding does not have a path to ground (ie, the connection to the control plate) it doesn't do anything at all.
Shielding must be properly grounded in order to work.

[Bassmingo]

Could one of you guys write a how to on this? i'll be sheilding my jazz soon and i've never done anything like it before. i have dimarzio sheilding tape.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by Bassmingo

Could one of you guys write a how to on this? i'll be sheilding my jazz soon and i've never done anything like it before. i have dimarzio sheilding tape.

Umm, no offense, but did you read the sticky at the top of the page?

[Bassmingo]

I read the first page, but the pictures in the guide were missing. the thread has a ton of pages!