Why? It takes 10 secs to work it out with meter and pickups in hand. I'm an EE and have to identify various circuits like this most days.
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Sure, if you're an EE! I dropped out of engineering school in 1987. Even so, I gave it a shot and here's what I came up with on the Bartolinis:
Red + white (green/bare negative) = 5.06
Black + white (green/bare negative) = 5.06
Red + white + bare (green/black negative) = 2.50
The readings were substantially the same on both pickups. As previously noted in this thread, both the neck and bridge BH2 PU have the same part number.
@Ach, @Snert, please note.
Take the red, not connected to anything else, and all other coloured wires not connected. Buzz for continuity from the red to all the other colours. One will give a resistance. Those 2 wires constitute coil 1. The other two coloured wires are coil 2. To identify coils, no not connect the bare wire to anything else.
I guess I learned something useful today.
Here are the readings for the Bartolinis:Red + black = 4.91 in one PU and 5.01 in the other.
Green + white resulted in similar resistances in both PUs.
So how does this help me solve my original problem--i.e., not getting any sound out of the guitar, even when I reinstalled my original pickups correctly?
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I had a look-through on Bartolini's website and found a few different wiring setups. I think this one may be most similar to yours?
Pickup Wiring 4-Conductor Original Quad Coils - Bartolini Pickups & Electronics
View attachment 4835689
From this diagram (particularly the part referring to blend-pot connection), and the Ibanez one you posted, it looks as if you should:
connect the red & white wire from the pickup to each other.
Black goes to black on your harness/plug, as you have it;
the bare wire will connect to white on the harness;
and the green from the pickup will go to red on the harness.
This is what I would go with if it were me, but others with more expertise may have better suggestions
I guess I learned something useful today.
Red + black = 4.91 in one PU and 5.01 in the other.
Green + white resulted in similar resistances in both PUs.
So how does this help me solve my original problem--i.e., not getting any sound out of the guitar, even when I reinstalled my original pickups correctly?
To me, based on your measurements, it still sounds like the red & white should go together, and black & green would connect to the pre-amp if the pickups are to be run in series?
I'm not an EE (only an AAS in instrumentation electronics from the 90s), and definitely not the most expert on TB, but I still think your current problem (neither set of pickups work) is in the pre-amp, or pre-amp wiring, somewhere.
I've never poked into one of those pre-amps, so hopefully someone that has, or that can diagnose via internet, can help you get it going again.
Then there's four possible ways to connect each pickup; 2 give output, 2 don't. You need to try to see which polarity each is.
Series; connect say black and white together and take the output from red to green. Got output? Then it's correct. No output then they're out of phase and the signal from each coil is subtracting.
Parallel: connect the two ends of each coil together, say red + green, and black + white. No output, then reverse.
Now you know the pickups are wired correctly. Ensure both pickups are wired the same. If you still have issues, it's either the preamp or how you have it connected.
Series; connect say black and white together and take the output from red to green. Got output? Then it's correct. No output then they're out of phase and the signal from each coil is subtracting.
Parallel: connect the two ends of each coil together, say red + green, and black + white. No output, then reverse.
Now you know the pickups are wired correctly. Ensure both pickups are wired the same. If you still have issues, it's either the preamp or how you have it connected.
That's what I'm thinking. I've seen a number of people complain that the scale only goes from 34" - 35.5", and that they'd rather it have been from 34" - 37". I think that would be really useful if you were going to be down tuning, but I don't plan on that. I want an Ibanez SR with that 35.5" scale B so that it's tight enough to sound like the rest. I've found that the 34" scale B on 5-string SR's is too floppy.
You can ignore that post. It was my mistake. Both BH2 pickups are identical in resistance. Both pickups are 4 wire pickups + ground wire.
I might have to go thisGuys
Years after opening the thread, i FINALLY made the move and upgraded from stock barts, to Nordstrands Big Split. I had a few mails with their team during months (they were arriving in spams), so to give em the specs for tailor-made them for my Iba... Nor cheap i myst say. But once received, they fit PERFECTLY and mounting went in minutes
View attachment 4758719
I am rediscovering my bass entirely. It goes from muddy and bassy sound, to something at last open-sounding and reasonably growly/agressive... Which is what i was after.
Now, time to play and make this beast mine !
With the +6db jumper switch is this a decent enough preamp to use with different pickups? I was thinking about just replacing the pickups with some Aguilar DCB's.
Here's a diagram for north/series/parallel
Green and black on the BH2's are the north and south finish wires, right? Would the red or white wire be north coil start?
To wire up a north/parallel/south switch I wire things up like this:
Do we know north start, north finish, south start, south finish?
Thanks!
I wanted to give an update on my "bricked" SR305e and ask for more help. @Ach @Snert and @KaraQ were kind enough to assist me before.
To recap, I tried installing BH1s on the guitar, which I wasn't able to do because I couldn't figure out the new pickups' wiring. When I attempted to reinstall the stock pickups, I couldn't get any sound from the guitar.
I bought a new preamp module (part no. 3EMP3LD) and volume/balancer (3EMV5T47-SB) because they were readily available and cheap to replace (about $40). I connected one of the two pickups and, again, no sound.
Should I just replace the three tone controls--effectively replacing the entire preamp circuit? I mean, I can't imagine why it's still not working!
To recap, I tried installing BH1s on the guitar, which I wasn't able to do because I couldn't figure out the new pickups' wiring. When I attempted to reinstall the stock pickups, I couldn't get any sound from the guitar.
I bought a new preamp module (part no. 3EMP3LD) and volume/balancer (3EMV5T47-SB) because they were readily available and cheap to replace (about $40). I connected one of the two pickups and, again, no sound.
Should I just replace the three tone controls--effectively replacing the entire preamp circuit? I mean, I can't imagine why it's still not working!
I wanted to give an update on my "bricked" SR305e and ask for more help. @Ach @Snert and @KaraQ were kind enough to assist me before.
To recap, I tried installing BH1s on the guitar, which I wasn't able to do because I couldn't figure out the new pickups' wiring. When I attempted to reinstall the stock pickups, I couldn't get any sound from the guitar.
I bought a new preamp module (part no. 3EMP3LD) and volume/balancer (3EMV5T47-SB) because they were readily available and cheap to replace (about $40). I connected one of the two pickups and, again, no sound.
Should I just replace the three tone controls--effectively replacing the entire preamp circuit? I mean, I can't imagine why it's still not working!
Don't know if this is still relevant as your post is quite old:
Did you see post #127 (Bartolini BH2 and Ibanez bass) on how to connect the pickup wires?
Then as a test you could connect hot and ground directly to the output jack. That way you test if the pickups produce any sound.
Caveat: If you do this turn your amp volume down before testing the sound!
I got a set of BH2s from someone on eBay this week and I've been reading this topic. All the wiring diagrams I can find online for 2 humbuckers with series/parallel/split controls for each pickup assume that you're using a set of matched neck and bridge pickups so the north start on the neck pickup are the screw polepieces and the south start on the bridge pickup are the screw polepieces.
As the BH2s are both the same then I'm assuming that to implement coil split and maintain humbucking operation you need to wire the neck pickup switch the opposite way to the bridge pickup switch? As both pickups are identical this is starting to twist my melon a bit.
Does anybody have a wiring diagram to implement this? I'm normally pretty good working out these things but I've managed to bamboozle myself. The modes I'm looking for are:
Neck: Series / Parallel / Neck Outside Coil (neck facing coil)
Bridge: Series / Parallel / Bridge Outside Coil (bridge facing coil)
Thanks in advance
As the BH2s are both the same then I'm assuming that to implement coil split and maintain humbucking operation you need to wire the neck pickup switch the opposite way to the bridge pickup switch? As both pickups are identical this is starting to twist my melon a bit.
Does anybody have a wiring diagram to implement this? I'm normally pretty good working out these things but I've managed to bamboozle myself. The modes I'm looking for are:
Neck: Series / Parallel / Neck Outside Coil (neck facing coil)
Bridge: Series / Parallel / Bridge Outside Coil (bridge facing coil)
Thanks in advance
Hi,
I appreciate you responding to the thread and offering to help. Rather than putting any further time or energy into the project, I just sold the bass. I got it very inexpensively and sold it at a fairly reasonable price, all things considered, so I was able to cut my losses.
Of course, now I have a pair of BH2s to get rid of!
Aaron
