Wiring Help

[downtap]

First off, thanks for the help and sorry to clog up the forum with another wiring help thread.

So, I've installed Aguilar DCBs with a Darkglass Tone Capsule, but for the life of me, can't get it to produce any sound. I'm definitely a novice at wiring, but did my best to look at both wiring diagrams at length, and don't see any obvious issue. Perhaps someone can see what the issue is? Here are the two wiring diagrams:



I'm wiring it to a master volume and blend bot with 18v. I know pics will be hard to tell, but I'll try to explain.


From the Aguilar pickups:
Gray wires soldered to inside cavity.
White wires to blend pot.
Black I soldered together along with wires to the blend, volume and preamp.

Red from battery to preamp, black to output jack ring.
Preamp output (blue) to output jack tip.
Output jack ground wired and soldered to cavity.

Thanks again for the help!
-Patrick

 

[Killed_by_Death]

just at a glance, it looks like tip & ring are swapped:

 

[James Collins]

I cannot tell from the pictures. Normally, if no sound is happening at all, then the output is getting grounded somewhere or shorted somewhere.

You need a multimeter to check the connections. That would be most efficient way to see where there is a problem.

I also don't think you need the first diagram. It is a standard jazz bass wiring with no preamp and a tone pot. If you have none of those, disregard that one entirely.

Edit: maybe your blend pot is the culprit? Are the two white wires from the pickups going to the upper and lower middle terminals and not touching the ground connection?

 

[downtap]

Thanks so much for the advice. Double checking the output jack, I think all is correct, but I may try switching just to be sure. I have the power from the battery going to the ring, and the wire from the preamp going to the tip. The ground is soldered to the cavity. Here's a closeup:


I double checked the blend pot as well, and it looks like my crappy soldering job was at least decent enough to make sure i wasn't grounding to anything.


I'm going to go get a multimeter today so I can properly test, that seems like probably the best option at this point. I'm wondering if how I'm grounding everything is the ultimate issue? The black wires from the darkglass diagram show a ground icon, but I'm not sure exactly what that meant. Those wires are not being soldered to the cavity at all. Do they need to be or is the connection I'm doing with them ok? It might be hard to tell from the pic, but the two black wires from the pickups are at the top of the pic, those are then soldered to three wires. one is going to the blend, one to the volume, and one to the preamp. This was the one part of the wiring I was really confused about and didn't know if I was doing it correctly.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

black to output jack ring

The black wire is connected to the tip currently.

 

[downtap]

The black wire is connected to the tip currently.

I think the last pic I posted was a weird angle or I must be misunderstanding the TRS jack then. You're saying the black wire in this pic is connected to the tip?


The black wire is coming from the battery. I'm assuming this should be connected to the ring?
I was basing what I thought it was off of this image. Is this correct?

 

[James Collins]

You are using the shielding as the common ground location? Like the ground from the pickups, the ground from the volume pot, the ground from the blend pot, and the ground from the active circuit are all soldered to the shielding, then a separate wire is soldered between the output jack and the shielding (blue wire in your case)? I've not done it this way and don't know if soldering to the shielding in this way works or not. What I've done is soldered the grounds to the top of the potentiometers so the pots are grounded. That is what the diagram is showing, all of those things getting soldered to the common ground.

Then the battery is soldered to the ring switch with the negative terminal and the blue wire from the preamp is soldered to the tip terminal.

Here is another diagram showing a similar circuit, I found that may be a little more clear. I know it is not the same brand, and the wiring colors are off, but it should make better sense what they are doing to the grounds to you.

 

[downtap]

Thanks for that diagram James, that is much more clear on how the grounds would be soldered. On the Aguilar diagram, it looks like the black wires would correspond to the black wires in your diagram, being solder to the pots and what not. The gray wires from the pickups though just show a single ground icon. Do you know what that means?

 

[Killed_by_Death]

The black wire is coming from the battery. I'm assuming this should be connected to the ring?

Yes
I'm seeing conflicting information regarding which is tip & ring. One way to know for sure is to look at which wafer the solder lug is on & correlate that to which contact (ring or tip) is on that same wafer.
Tip is obviously the longest/tallest contact point for the plug.

Now that you have a multimeter, check for continuity (zero Ohms) between the pickups' ground leads & the sleeve side of your output jack.

 

[James Collins]

Thanks for that diagram James, that is much more clear on how the grounds would be soldered. On the Aguilar diagram, it looks like the black wires would correspond to the black wires in your diagram, being solder to the pots and what not. The gray wires from the pickups though just show a single ground icon. Do you know what that means?

You can connect it to the same ground as everything else. They just make it that way in the diagram for simplicity.

I don't see information for it on their website, but I assume the second wire is for coil splitting if you wanted to connect it to a switch. Here is a similar wiring diagram for the hum cancelling jazz pickup.

http://www.aguilaramp.com/wp-content/uploads/wiring-diagram-jazz-hum-canceling.pdf