Problems with wiring new SDX

[rdamaral]

I'm trying to install new Duncan pickups in my Adrian Smith SDX. A hot rails, screaming demon, and invader.

I have all reds and whites soldered together (separately), and each green and bare to the top of the volume pot. I left the rest of the wiring stock, since I didn't think I would need to mess with it.
Black wires go to the 5 way switch.

Plug it in and get no signal. What am I doing wrong?

[JACKSONFREAK]

Make sure the black wires have a solid connection on the switch and the grounds are good.

[rdamaral]

Everything is connected well. Something obviously isn't hooked up correctly though.

Does anyone have a good diagram for a hss setup, one vol one tone, 5 way switch?

The one from SD shows only fender style pickups, I don't know if that has a difference or not.

[DonP]

and each green and bare to the top of the volume pot.

Make sure the volume pot is still grounded. I did this fubar when wiring up a Model 4. All leads grounded to pot, but pot wasn't connected to the final ground to the output jack.

[rdamaral]

OK.

I wonder if I have the jack wired backwards. The inside tab goes to ground?

I have one extra wire, that connects to a screw into the body (wood). Where does that attach?

[Rich#6]

that extra wire is a ground and should go to the back of the pot.

[JACKSONFREAK]

Even if the jack was wired backwards it would still make noise. It would hum a lot.

[javert]

Is it HSH or HSS? I see that the Screamin' deamon now comes in single coil size too. I always followed the Seymour Duncan wiring diagrams and never had any problems. I have had several guitars that were wired wrong from the factory, though.

It sounds like you're doing it right. You can wire everything like the HSS diagrams, only solder the bare and the green to ground (instead of the black, as shown in the HSS diagram) and the black to the switch (instead of the white). Check that all grounds have about 0 Ohm resistance between them and that all wires are connected to the correct terminals of the pots.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=HSS_1v_5w

[rdamaral]

It's HSS. The SD diagram shows only three wires to the five way switch. That way wouldn't work.

I wired all five positions on the switch, and it worked. I also had to move a couple of wires around on the pots too.

Mama was sick in bed, so I wasn't able to crank it up, but I will try it out today.

[javert]

Which diagram are you using? The one I linked to has a fourth wire connected to the volume pot, so that should be right, depending of course on what you're trying to achieve. I remember that you had to hard-wire some of the connections on the five-way switch in my strat to get the pickup combos working right. But good that you got it working.

[straycat]

http://guitarelectronics.com

[Axegrinder87]

Hot Rails is a humbucker, therefore your layout is H-S-H.

[jacksonaxes]

Hot rails is a single size humbucker.

[JACKSONFREAK]

If nothing was changed but the three pups and it worked before than the problem is the wires from the pups or one of the grounds.