Model 5 wiring advise

[alexdulac]

Hey,
Had a charvel model 5 for about 4 years now, but the electrics have always been abit dodgy (taken it to a repair shop twice), but problem keeps coming back due to the old wiring i guess.

Anyway, i decided to rewire it... i thought it went well, i made my own wiring diagram before hand so i knew where it all went, but after soldering it back together, theres no sound. not a thing.
i dont really want to take it to a repair shop and risk a £50 charge for getting all the wires done (AGAIN), but i want my charvel to work again!!!

i dont think any of the pots are bad or the preamp thing (not sure exactly what it is, some call it a mid boost), but everything worked before i unwired it.

Are there any wiring diagrams online? detailed pictures would be bloody amazing!
any advise would be great though.

thanks,

[dg]

Your problem could be at the preamp or at the special 5-way switch. The schematic for the switch wired to 2 hums is on the lower right of this page:

http://audiozone.dk/guitargallery/?c...8Page16_17.jpg

Keep in mind that the colors they are referring to are for Jackson pickups, so if you have a different brand, it's important to do the color code conversion.



The hot wire coming from the switch will then be the one labeled "A" in this diagram for the midboost:

http://audiozone.dk/guitargallery/?c...xtra_1200e.jpg

[alexdulac]

thanks so much, ill have to have a poke around!! yeah its the stock jackson pups, is the shield from the pickups the silver uncoated wire?
thanks,
Alex

[alexdulac]

ok,

almost there!! my only confusion is where all the different grounds go.

theres the wire from the bridge, theres the screw into the side of the guitar and theres the ground that goes to the jack plug. also the pickup grounds onto the back of the vol/tone pot
which refers to which in those two diagrams?

[DonP]

All grounds need to hook together.

[dg]

What Don said. I don't think the diagram is going to match up all the wires like the pickup cavity shield wires & the trem claw wire, but the key thing is that you have a wire connecting that central ground point (the screw going into the cavity wall) to the ground points on the back of the pots and then to the ground lug on the jack. As long as all of those connect at some point, you should have it.

[alexdulac]

ok it worked! BUT i get a loud 'pop' when moving past the middle pickup switch position, (position 3) any ideas? i've got everything wired exactly as the diagram says, but theres some old solder on some of the unused pickup selector contacts, could that be it??

thanks,
Alex

[MetalMedal II]

ok it worked! BUT i get a loud 'pop' when moving past the middle pickup switch position, (position 3) any ideas? i've got everything wired exactly as the diagram says, but theres some old solder on some of the unused pickup selector contacts, could that be it??

The pop might go away with some contact cleaner...could be just dirty contacts. The one structural weak component of the Jackson active electronics is the stereo jack. It has a plastic housing and can easily crumble after 20+ yrs and when this happens the internals can ground. Replacing it with a quality stereo one is advisable.

[alexdulac]

theyre pretty loud pops though, no way it could be left over solder??

[dg]

Not sure if it's going to solve your problem, but it wouldn't hurt to clean up the excess. A solder wick works really well for that. It's just braided fine wire that you lay on the solder then heat with the iron to suck it up. Radio Shack & some hardware stores have it, or you can make your own by loosening up some braided wire.

http://www.ehow.com/video_4435740_use-solder-wick-remove-solder.html

[alexdulac]

cool ill give it a try!! also the tone sounds very trebley, and i remember the pickups used to sound lush, could that be that ive wired the pickups in a weird combination? or missed out the tone pot? this is my 2nd wire job and its a pretty complicated guitar,
thanks for all the help so far guys!

[dg]

Hmmmm. It's so hard to tell anything for sure without having the guitar in front of me. I will say that I learned a lot about that special switch when swapping in Duncans. It's easy to get things out of phase or end up with only one coil working if you're not careful. Are you using the original Jackson pickups? Sometimes, if you're unsure about your wiring a good trick is to get some small alligator clips and try out different things until it sounds right. I'd try cleaning up that excess solder first, because you could be shorting a coil to ground, and that might account for the change in sound.

[DonP]

Pops are usually from a cap being connected or removed. It sounds like there is a stray cap connected to the pickup selector switch.

[alexdulac]

took it into a music shop, they had a look and told me the switch was sh*t, so i forked out for a dimarzio super 5 way switch. which works, only problem now, the dimarzio has a different arrangement of contacts than the jackson 5 way, so i need to figure out where to solder each pickup wire now!!

pain in the ass, but its getting close now!!