where'd I go wrong with my Emg install?

[Mikernaut2]

Well I'll admit I'm not much of an handyman and my soldering is pretty poor so I'm confused about what I did wrong.

Installed Emgs in a project ESP Carpenter guitar. Single ,Hum ,Hum config. ( actually dont have the single yet, i'm waiting on it) Took forever just to figure out how to wire things up. Finally found a diagram that seemed to make sense. diagram 5 here-

http://symian.com/WBGen2.html

Now the 2 Hums work but it seems like I am not getting full output. It sounds like the volume has been rolled back to 7 or 8 ( but its not, its fully on 10)
all the parts are new and the pickups worked fine before in another guitar.

So does this syndrome suggest I wired something wrong or possibly damaged something ( volume pot?) with my trial and error soldering. I have another set of volume and tone pots I was considering trying, but figured I should get some advice as I'm not good at guitar tech, hah.

[emperor_black]

I desperately tried to wire two EMGs to my DK2T with no luck! mountaindog tried a lot to help but there's only so much pictures and words can communicate. You can try to contact him and see if he can help. I went back to Passives and got the wiring right the very first time! Good luck!

answer to your question is there could be a grounding problem. But god knows where and how to fix it!

[rjohnstone]

You could have cooked the volume pot by overheating it during soldering.
As for wiring diagrams... use the ones from EMG's site.

http://www.emginc.com/downloads/wiringdiagrams/9_Basic_Wiring_Diagrams.pdf

They will get you going in the right direction.

[emperor_black]

i could not find a single EMG diagram on the net that showed the connection to a 3-way switch similar to what the DK2T had. MountainDog pointed me to the stewmac's website which had a passive pickup diagram showing a 8 pole 3-way switch and I tried to work from there. But it did not work nevertheless.

mike, does your pickup selector switch's poles match with any listed on the EMG's diagrams? If yes, then it should work. I've been told the CTS-pots are VERY hard to "burn-out".

[rjohnstone]

You cannot use stock volume pots with EMG's.
You have to use the pots that came with the pickups.
They are very different.
Stock pots are typically 250k or 500k.
EMG pots are 25k.

[mustaine-who?]

Also...

Also...its easy to forget...you have to cut the black wire that grounds the pots to the bridge. EMGs are self grounding. I had half volume as well until I cut it...

[Mikernaut2]

Yeah I might have fried the volume pot abit. ( like I said I do poor soldering, heh) So I can try to throw in my spare pots and see if that fixes the problem.

I have installed EMGS before with a 3way switch and just 2 Hums and it was fine. It's just this s,h,h config is abit weirder for me.

Heres the diagram that I found to be closest. My selector switch is flipped so I'm unsure if I have the "yellow" and "red" wires soldered in the right positions. But everything seems to function. I just get confused with the wiring on the selector, I wish they had better drawings/diagrams of that area.



Its just the output isnt as crunchy and full powered sounding compared to the half a dozen other guitars I have with EMG's. Like I said it sounds like the volume is dialed back to 8 or 7.

[Mikernaut2]

Yeah I cut the black grounding wire, so thats not the issue. If I could only find my digital camera to take a pic of this debacle, hah

[toejam]

Are you sure the guitar cable is pushed all the way into the stereo jack? I had that problem when I got my first guitar with EMGs (I would also get a little distortion when using the amp's clean channel). I pushed the cable in until it clicked, but it still needed to be pushed in further until I got full output. Seems their jacks are kind of tight.

[zeegler]

I had the exact same problem with my King V with 2 hums. I rewired it, checked everything 6 damn times, and could not figure it out. I suppose it's possible that I fried the volume pot, but I just asked the guy who is refinishing it to wire it up properly for me, so he'll fix it if the pot is bad.

[emperor_black]

the input jack, is that EMG's or a regular stereo jack? A EMG jack has two prongs and three poles... just like a stereo jack does. But the two prongs are of equal length and both come in contact with the "hot" tip of the guitar cable's plug. A regular stereo jack has prongs of unequal length.

[Sunbane]

Seriously, wiring EMGs is no different than wiring other pickups. If anything, it's often easier, since you have fewer wires per pickup and pre-soldered pots. The major difference is the wires for the battery power, and that is hard to fuxx0r up.

Most of the time, it seems it's the selector switch that people have problems with - and it will work the same regardless of what pickups you hook up to it.

[marcus]

the input jack, is that EMG's or a regular stereo jack? A EMG jack has two prongs and three poles... just like a stereo jack does. But the two prongs are of equal length and both come in contact with the "hot" tip of the guitar cable's plug. A regular stereo jack has prongs of unequal length.

The diagram shown cannot have two prongs both connected to the tip. When the cable is plugged in, you want the two black wires to be connected electrically, that is your ground. If both prongs are connected to the tip, you will have the hot wire from the pickups (the white wire connected to the jack) shorted to the ground of the battery, not good. You should be able to use a regular stereo jack for EMGs. The jack that came with my EMG set didn't work with the guitar I was going to put it in, and I used a regular stereo jack. I haven't had any problems.

[Newc]

Unsolder everything and get a bag of jumper leads to test connections before soldering, as well as troubleshooting potential bad/weak connections. You can also use them to test whether certain connection options will cancel out other connections (phasing), or siphon some of the signal from one connection, which would give the illusion of a bad pot.

[emperor_black]

The diagram shown cannot have two prongs both connected to the tip. When the cable is plugged in, you want the two black wires to be connected electrically, that is your ground. If both prongs are connected to the tip, you will have the hot wire from the pickups (the white wire connected to the jack) shorted to the ground of the battery, not good. You should be able to use a regular stereo jack for EMGs. The jack that came with my EMG set didn't work with the guitar I was going to put it in, and I used a regular stereo jack. I haven't had any problems.

really? Let me see if I can locate the original thread in which I was suggested to use the EMG stereo jack. I had to actually bend one of the prongs to make it equal size as the other and only then any sound came out.
BTW, my problem was that I could not get both EMG's (81 & 85) to work. I was able to get the Emg 81 in the bridge position only to work. If I connected the 85, nothing worked!

EDIT: this is the thread about the EMG stereo jack connection.

http://www.jcfonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67148&highlight=emg+wiring