Fender Jaguar Bass Shielding Buzz Solved

[Slap_N_Slide]

Did my Jag with Conductive Copper Adhesive sheets which allowed me to template each cavity and get a near perfect finish with minimum overlaps...Think I got them from ebay and was not too expensive, and a roll of Conductive copper tape for the side walls. I went the whole hog and shielded every cavity, including the battery and pickup cavities.

Also bought Silver Conductive paint from RS Components and painted all the seams and inaccessible sections like the holes between cavities. Jack plug hole. there is not a part that isn't conductive.

Replaced some cabling with shielded micro coax.

Bobs yer Uncle!! Worked a treat. Did the Spector as well after as had enough left.

Very rewarding, The photos make them look like copper body bass guitars

 

[electracoyote]

Well, I did this exactly the way it was outlined and I still have a bit of hum. I'm not sure, but I think it's a little less than before, and as per Dave's video, I think the active treble boost is the main culprit.

Also, like Dave said, the central cavity (with the circuit board) has a piece of foam rubber glued to the bottom. When I ran the copper tape in that cavity, I did not remove the foam, but the tape is firmly attached to both sides, and runs across the top of the foam. Then I put a piece of thin card stock between the circuit board and the tape. This should still constitute a connection, correct? The tape still comes out along the edge for the pick guard foil to touch, and it connects to adjoining cavities.

I have heard the battery compartment can be part of the problem, but I don't see how to shield it. Also, I did nothing to the rear pickup. As Dave said, it's pretty tight, and that was not addressed in the first video.

This is very frustrating, as this Jag is one of the best playing and sounding in my arsenal, but my sound engineers will never tolerate this hum, even subdued. My favorite electronics tech, who has done some pretty amazing stuff to my guitars, shrugged his shoulders and scratched his head, no idea what to do.

More ideas?

 

[Slap_N_Slide]

I am under the impression that your shielding must be complete, if you miss any cavities, or parts are left unshielded then you may as well not have started as these are probably the areas where rf is getting through.

If i were you i would shield every area, everywhere, and conductive paint any parts you cant reach like cable holes, i gather you replaced the bridge wire as well with a shielded one.

As for the battery compartment, remove the plastic clip and shield the cavity only with copper tape, paint the seams and cable hole, i put some insulating tape over the copper tape after to remove the risk of popping the electrics when closing the clip. Needs to be neat as there aint a lot of space.

I did both pick cavities, and inside the pick covers as well, again if you are neat, make templates it can be done with no issues.

I only get a little noise when on single pickup now, and i believe that due to the pick type, this is normal, all other times has made a vast improvement but i was very thorough with the shielding, i can send some pics if you want.

 

[Rush Mayhem IV]

I have the jag all shielded up but I have a question. Do I need to run a piece of copper directly under the pickups and solder that to the shield? (Grounding the pups) Also when I was finished I forgot to do the battery compartment. Is this also critical? (I haven't put any strings on her yet but it she's noticeably quieter with the shielding.)

edit* - I added a new copper wire to the bridge AND a separate copper wire from the rear PUP cavity to the TONE pot ground.

 

[bholder]

After weeks and weeks of procrastination I decided to give this a shot. WOW wasnt hard at all! It's super silent now more so then my other basses which I already considered silent haha I now see myself doing this simple job to all my basses for the rest of my life. By the time I decided to take the pic I had already begun to re-screw the electronics so although not visible the inside of the cavities are shielded as well.

Funny side note: I go to home depot asking for copper tape. I get sent from electrical to hardware to plumbing back to electrical. Finally the first lady I asked backed in electrical, who was totally flirting by the way , says ok lets go look it up cause I think you just made that up lol She finds something in her database and she says its only available online sorry. It was this huge 50ft roll super thick industrial tape. Then she shows me the screen and says will this work? Its called slug and snail barrier. We check it out, she opened it there for me, and I'm like for $7 its worth a shot. Worked to perfection! Who would of known I'd find it in the Gardening pest control isle haha

Cool find on the tape. I've found that the best source for thin copper foil for shielding projects is often the local crafts store (AC Moore, Michael's, etc.), though it's often in some odd section under a weird name (though they, of course, seem to think I'm the weird one).