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The Rickenbarner - my first fully scratch-build!

#161
So you bought a new RIC harness for $65+shipping, then added your own output jack, then spent 5 hours working on the wiring. Meanwhile, I build mono harnesses with the vintage tone option for 4001/3's for $100 shipped. In spite of the lame pot values, I'm sure the factory harness was built correctly, but with all the extra cheap vinyl insulated wire in the harness, you can't really tell where everything is supposed to go unless you already know how the bass is wired. You should be able to look at the pic I supplied to build a harness from scratch, but there are a few tricks that come from having built 100's of these that make it go together easier and last longer.
 
#162
By the way, the previously posted Seymour-Duncan schematic is for Gibson style wiring, not Rickenbacker. The main difference that comes to mind is that the controls for one pickup can be affected by the controls for another. RIC got this right decades ago.
 
#164
I just got new pots and switch, and I rewired all of it exactly like the Seymour Duncan diagram above, which does have the pickups wired to the leads of the selector switch. The only addition to this layout is that I have shielded all of the cavities and ran a ground wire from the bridge to the back of the bridge volume pot. However, I'm still getting the same problem, which is loud buzzing that gets even louder when I touch the strings.

Is this a grounding issue? Should there be a ground wire running from one of the jacks to the back of a pot?
 
#168
My experience has been similar to Ron's in that photos of wiring harnesses usually reveal 9 out of 10 connections clearly, but there are always at least a couple that are hard to see, particularly at the jack connections where wires overlap, and connections to pot eyelets. There are commonly available, clear, legible wiring diagrams for the less electrically gifted among us for almost every common guitar, but in all my internet scrounging, I've yet to see a complete, accurate wiring diagram for a Ric 4001/4003 including jacks and pups. Apparently the Ric schematic even has errors in it, though I'll admit schematics are largely greek to me. What seems obvious and elementary to some with years of experience and underlying knowledge of the signal path is a hurdle to noobs like me. If no one else is willing, I'll try drawing up a wiring diagram myself for general scorn and ridicule till I get it right!

P.S.
Maybe better to post this in the Pickups and electronics section?
 
#169
It's situations like this that makes me grateful I took a class in electronics in High School, and that the school actually offered the class. I think I was in one of the first classes after they built the electronics lab. I never did well with foreign languages, but a schematic is like a road map to me.

That said, I never understood why people waste the time to solder the ground to the actual case of the pot. I just use a common grounding point, and ground everything there. Since I shield everything, and the pot is mounted to the shield, the pots are grounded too. It just seems simpler to me. Of course on a Ric, the control cavities are NOT shielded, and the posts are mounted to a plastic pick guard. But that seems pretty standard in an industry that strives for cost effectiveness.
 
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#170
mapleglo said:
Of course on a Ric, the control cavities are NOT shielded, and the posts are mounted to a plastic pick guard. But that seems pretty standard in an industry that strives for cost effectiveness.
Click to expand...

So, are you saying that I shouldn't have shielded this thing? Is that what's wrong?

By the way, I did run a line from the sleeve of the stereo jack to the pot. Still a no go. I've checked continuity, and everything seems to be connected well.
 
#171
RaniBrandt said:
So, are you saying that I shouldn't have shielded this thing? Is that what's wrong?

By the way, I did run a line from the sleeve of the stereo jack to the pot. Still a no go. I've checked continuity, and everything seems to be connected well.
Click to expand...

No, you should shield it. Just make sure none of the connections are shorting out against the shield. That's happened to me on more than one occasion.
 
#173
Ron/Maple,
Did you apply shielding tape to the back of the pickguard too? I was under the impression the idea is to create a "faraday cage" of sorts to block RF intereference, but don't really understand how that works with pots that touch the pg shielding via the nuts holding the pots in place. My electronics ignorance is really inexcusable, I know. I've been trying to find a good reference manual on guitar wiring to remedy that.
 
#174
Yes, the entire control cavity should be shielded, including the back of the pick guard. And yes, it is, in fact, a faraday cage, which by the way, needs to be grounded.

Keep in mind that many guitars and basses, Rickenbacker included, do not shield the control cavity from the factory.
 
#175
Yeah, I bought an MIM strat with a little piece of aluminum tape as the only shielding on the back of the PG, buzzed and hummed pretty bad until I shielded it. It still hums a little close to my monitor, otherwise ok. Kind of ridiculous they don't bother to shield, but Ric knows best! I "star grounded" the strat based on diagrams found online with no real understanding how it works, but it did.
 
#176
Remember that, if using copper tape, good continuity between adjacent strips of the tape is crucial. I've had more than one bass in which spot-soldering one strip to the next helped a lot. Using a multimeter, you should measure as close to 0 ohms as possible across each junction. If it's appreciably more than that, solder them together.
 
#178
electronics can/are nerve racking! uuuuha..., not really my "FORTE" ether..., uuuha..., but I remember in my beginnings, working in my first repair shop. I had this BAD habit of wiring the out put jack backwards, (hot on ground and ground on hot) and it would sound like what your saying, not to mention drive me nuts because everything else looked right and I just couldn't see the problem. Then it was pointed out. :facepalm: So maybe give that a double check before you give up. YOU CAN DO IT! :thumbsup:
 
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