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Need wiring help

O

OrangeFurball

Jun 28, 2012
52
0
Scranton, PA
#1
Update: I'm going to test the pups by hooking the up to a spare jack I have. If they work and are passive, I will try to figure the pots out and just wire it up like that. If it has to be active, here are my questions. If the pickups have 4 wires each, and there are only two spots to solder them to the pre amp, what goes where? Also, what do I solder the batteries to? There are no markings for positive or negative, and there are 4 unmarked areas that need to be soldered to. More pictures are in the posts below. Thanks!

So... as some of you may know, I bought a body and neck of a bass. Its passive (I think) but I'm not sure if this wired already. I'm very new to this! If it isn't wired, what do I have to do?
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#5
SGD Lutherie said:
You can see it has a preamp and a place for a battery, so it's not passive. The pickups are probably passive however.

I'd try it out before you gut the thing.
Click to expand...

I want to try it out. I have an extra jack lying around but I don't know where to hook it up (there isn't one) If the pickups would work I may try to rewire it as passive. Not sure yet (don't know how to do that either :p )
 
#6
Here are some updated pictures. I can't get the pickups out (they are glued or something) but nothing was attached to the board (pre amp?) Anyway, if anyone knows if I can wire it up as passive, that would be great. Or tell me what I need to do to get it to work.

I see than the pickup wires are 4 wires. Green, white, black, and red. All I see on the board that has anything to do with pickups are "RPU1 IN PUT" for the bridge pickup and "FPU1 IN PUT" for the neck. Also I see "OUTPUT JACK" which is obviously for the output. This is what I figured out so far. There are 4 knobs. I have no idea which one is which. There are three that are the same and one that is different. I can do solder these, make a plastic tray and glue those on there. Then solder it all together. But I'm still lost... here are some pictures.

**update: I'm going to hook up a pickup to an output jack to see if it'll work as passive. If it does I'll see if the capacitors from the board will work, then I'll wire them up to the knobs. Hopefully it'll work and it should be a lot easier thank figuring out the board. My only problem right now is that those pickups are stuck in there so I can't extend the wiring (previous owner cut them way to short...)

**update two: got the pickups out. I had to take 4 wide screws and partially put them into the screw holes. Then I pulled up and wiggled it out. Turns out there was a good inch on the neck pup and about a half an inch of wire on the bridge pup just sitting in the bottom adhesive! Now I won't have to mess around with the wires! But I didn't see any markings to lead me to the model of pup in these. Im thinking they are humbuckers... not entirely sure.

The reason I'm doing this project is so I can learn the basics of the electronics and everything, which is why passive would be easier for a noob builder like me

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#10
Got another update. I wired the neck pup straight to the jack (red and white wires together, black to the tip and green and shielding to the barrel) and a had my sister hold it. Then I put on the bridge from my other bass, held the string tight and plucked it. It worked! So now, what wires go on each pot? I would ideally like it to be one tone and one volume for each but if I can't do that it won't be a deal breaker. Thanks!
 
#11
Why not just hook up the Preamp, it looks pretty straight forward. Your bridge pickup goes to RPU 1 the neck goes to FPU 2 and your you hook up your jack to where it says Input jack. You can tell which side is the ground by looking at the board and seeing which circuit is common between all connections.
 
#12
Hopkins said:
Why not just hook up the Preamp, it looks pretty straight forward. Your bridge pickup goes to RPU 1 the neck goes to FPU 2 and your you hook up your jack to where it says Input jack. You can tell which side is the ground by looking at the board and seeing which circuit is common between all connections.
Click to expand...

There are 4 areas that I don't know what to hook up. I know two are for the battery, but there are three open spots by the battery. Then there is one area with a red wire cut off. Also I don't know where ground comes from. There was just a piece of yellow wire in the hole but it wasn't connected to anything
 
#14
Well, its dead. I finally got it figured out, I thought. The black positive wire from the battery to the spot in front of the battery holder and the red negative wire to the spot with the red wire sticking out, plugged it all in and the battery shorted. Something can't be right, because the batter got extremely hot and burned my fingers only after 15 seconds of being plugged in! Long story short I snipped the wires and threw it on my back porch, it can explode out there.

So now I think I probably ruined any chance of running this thing active. I'll probably try to wire it up passive tomorrow (hopefully my bridge will be in) and I'll run a test before stripping the caps from the pre amp. Hopefully the last questions before I finish this

1) how can I wire v/v/t/selector pot (not switch)?

2) I plan on using the large pot for the pickup selector, the two matching ones for the two volumes, and the one left for tone.

Here is a quick drawing I made. Dark blue is volume, yellow is pup selection, and light blue is master tone. I don't know how to connect the master tone to the volume pots and then to the selector.
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Red wire is positive, black negative, green and white soldered together.

3) what wires need to go to ground?

4) if I understand correctly, I need to attach the ground wires to the pots. Then do I attach a wire to a pot and string that to the bridge?

Thanks everyone. If all goes well this will be done tomorrow!
 
#15
You burned your fingers because you essentially connected the red (positive) off of the battery to the black (ground) to the battery. This allows the battery to basicly power itself and get extremely hot.

Go to Radio Shack and buy new caps. You probably didn't, but if you did manage to zap them (or they are just shot anyways) you pulling them off of a circuit board is a waste of time. The two dollar investment is well worth it in my opinion.

Also replace the pots while you're at it. Those pots are made for a PCB, and while you can probably use them if you plan on using the bass regularly it is worth the extra twenty to put fresh clean pots in.

Do you plan on having the "Pickup Select" pot act as a blend knob of sorts? A pot isn't a rotary switch so using a regular pot probably won't give you the answer you're looking for. A blend knob with two volumes also would be redundant.

Not trying to shoot your ideas down, but doing it the right way the first time with the right parts will save you time, headache and your fingers from being burned. I have been there and done it.
 

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