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HELP: Warwick MEC pickups + Seymour Duncan STC-2A

Discussion in 'Pickups & Electronics [BG]' started by HELLonWHEELS, May 18, 2018.

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  1. May 18, 2018 #1
    HELLonWHEELS

    HELLonWHEELS Supporting Member

    Jun 13, 2005
    Houston
    Long story short, I took my Warwick Streamer apart literally years ago to refinish it, which I just got around to finishing... I'm going to put everything back together and I realized I never took a photograph of what the wiring looked like beforehand and the wiring diagram from Seymour Duncan doesn't have all the information I need.

    12e159d83692642265a81a3917e82bcf.png


    I think I got everything wired correctly except for the pickups. I'm not exactly sure how to handle them, all the pickups I've delt with in the past had two wires, the Warwick MEC pickups have 5 each split into two groups.

    Group 1: (white + green wires) I assumed this was the "hot output" and have them both connected to the middle pot in the wiring diagram.

    Group 2: (red + black + unsleeved) I don't have a clue what to do here. I'm guessing this should be the ground wire, but I'm not sure where to put it. If you look at the pic below, there really isn't much room slack so it must have been connected someplace around that middle pot...

    h9ksbJB.jpg


    Any help would be much appreciated.

    Thank you!


    EDIT: So i ended up soldering all those wires to the selector potentiaometer casing. I'm now running into an issue where the volume knob isn't working, it seems like the volume is stuck wide open, however I'm not 100% sure because I don't have strings attached.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2018
  2. May 19, 2018 #2
    HELLonWHEELS

    HELLonWHEELS Supporting Member

    Jun 13, 2005
    Houston
    so I just soldered on both the "ground" wires to side of the middle pot. Everything is work, but it seems as though the volume is stuck on, also I'm not sure if the active/passive switch is working. I'm just tapping a screw driver against the pickups as my test...
     
  3. May 19, 2018 #3
    eastcoasteddie

    eastcoasteddie

    Mar 24, 2006
    Brooklyn, transplanted to NoVA
    What kind of pickups are they? Soaps? Jazz? PJ?
    By the colors/grouping, it sounds like humbuckers of some type wired in parallel; white/green as hot for each coil, and red/black as ground with the bare as a shielded ground. Those three all get soldered to ground (pot case)
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2018
  4. May 20, 2018 #4
    HELLonWHEELS

    HELLonWHEELS Supporting Member

    Jun 13, 2005
    Houston
    The pickups are soap bars. Your assessment makes sense. I soldered everything to the pot case (it's a little messy, but it's done properly).


    I got the multi-meter in, I'm going to try to figure out how to do continuity tests and see if there's any break in the ground connection.
     
  5. May 26, 2018 #5
    somebrains

    somebrains

    Feb 7, 2017
    1) . The hot (usually white) is soldered onto the middle lug of the blend pot.
    2) . You have 4 conductor soapbars, so pull the original wiring diagram from Warwick and you'll see what the pairs are for series/parallel/single.

    3) . I run an STC-3p in a $$5, luckily my bass came with a pair of dip switches for pickup selection. You can go get some pots and do push-pull series/parallel selection. You can also decide to solder your pickups if you know that you like series vs parallel vs single. You just take that hot and solder it to the blend and cap the other 2 off. Ground goes to whatever lug is close. Frankly some pickups just sound better 1 specific way, it's nice to have choices, but meh.

    4) . I'd practice a little bit more with the soldering iron, SD pots are like Warwick pots in that nailing them with lots of heat many times isn't such a good idea.

    PM me, next time I'm in LA I wanna see what you ended up with.
    I have like 4 Warwicks, none of them have stock preamps or electronics, they're just placeholders for something better.