Bass wiring emergency

No, you don't have to sand the shielding paint off. And just make sure the tape somewhere is in contact with a ground. You don't have to worry about soldering or tacking the tape to itself, as long as one piece of tape contacts the next piece of tape (the glue was conductive on my roll).

There's gotta be two wires on the pickup, they might be in the same jacket, but there's gotta be two wires...they might be shielded coaxial wire, which means there would be a central wire with a braided wire shield around it--the braided wire is the ground wire and the central wire is the positive wire.

 

As long as the tape sticks o.k., you can leave the paint.

It depends on the tape that you bought. Some tape is conductive through the glue and some isn't. See if it says on the package. If it is not then you will have to tack 'em together.

Use as few pieces of tape as possible. The bigger the better.

There's definitely two wires coming from your pickups. Check if it is being grounded somewhere else than the control cavity. Also check and see if you have a center conductor/braid cable. The center conductor would be hot and the braid/shield would be ground.

Good luck!



Joe.

 

The black wires coming from the pickups on the schematic would be the center conductor on your pickup wire.

The white wires coming from the pickups on the schematic would be the ground wire or braid of your pickup wire.



Joe.

 

Oh.

Yes, you can either strip it down and unravel the braid far enough to reach where you need to go or just solder a wire to the braid and then run the wire to whatever terminal you need it to go to.

The second choice might be the best way to go.

But whatever you do make sure that the exposed braid does not come into contact with the rest of the wiring.

 

That's backwards, which I guess your smiley implies, but I wouldn't want the original poster to try it backwards.

Braided shield = black

Center white conductor = white

 

It's not a good mod to do with pickups that use a braided shield for the negative lead, since that braid can easily touch other grounded components, especially if you shield the cavities.

Ultra Jazzes are great, and you can certainly use them. Or you could replace the stock leads on your current pickups with separate leads.

 

OK, this is the way to deal with that cable. It is called coaxial cable, or just "coax". Pron. "coe-axe", not "coaks"

Do it like this:
1. strip off about an inch of insulation
2. using a blunt pick (they come in soldering tool kits) separate the braid just above where the insulation ends. You want to make a hole but not break up the fine braid wire. Be patient and you will have a nice open spot where you can see the insulated center conductor.
3. Make a bend in the cable so that the center conductor pushes against the hole you just made.
4. Use the same tool to get under the center wire and pull it through. The best bet is to get the tool under both sides and then work it out through the hole.
Done!
Smooth the braid down and be careful with heat since it will melt through the center wire insulation if you aren't careful. You will probably want to solder up some small extensions into the pickup leads. Get some small heatshrink tubing and some good electrical tape. You don't want exposed braid flopping around in there.

But it sounds like you have some other hurdles to clear on this project.... If you go with UJ's then you will have 4 conductors per pickup! Also, that is a diagram, not a schematic! There is no end to the hall of mirrors you have stumbled in to.

 

Heh. Yeah, it's a diagram. Most people can't read a schematic, but they can read the diagram. The UJ 4 wires are easy to deal with.

 

That's very true about braided coax, but the stuff on SX pups is not braided, it's just twisted coax. Once you strip the outer jacket, the shield wire will just come away

 

Whoops!

My mistake, I stand corrected.

Didn't take a close enough look at the output jack.



Joe.