my charvel 6 will not earth!!!

[liamjrobertson]

Please help, i have replaced the old JE 1200 with an emg spc ( mid boost control ) and also fitted new 500k volume and tone pot- the 3 pup selectors still work fine. On the wiring diagram for fitting the spc it shows there should be 1 black ground wire coming from the spc pot, however there are 2 black wires! Also there is no diagram anywhere online from what i can see that shows how to rewire the charvel6- as it it 1H2SC ( stacked hums to be precise ) and has 3 on/off pup selectors. Im having a nightmare because no matter how i wire the guitar up i cannot earth it properly! Im sure im doing something obviously wrong but no matter how many hours i put in rewiring after rewiring i still have the same problem. Im sure someone out there has fitted the emg spc and would love some feedback or even better a solution.
Please help

[dg]

Here's the only diagram I can find to help you with the mini-switches. It's for 3 singles, but the only difference is you'll wire the series leads of the hum together (red & white if it's a Jackson or Duncan pickup) and tape them off. Other than that, it is wired the same.

http://www.jcfonline.com/resources/JC_Electronics_Manual/target17.html

Since the JE-1200 is gone, the white (hot) wire connecting across the center lugs of all 3 switches will go to the top lug of your volume pot. Then wire your tone pot to that same lug. The White (input) wire of the SPC should be wired to the center lug of the volume pot.

Weird that you have 2 black wires on your SPC. Should be Red, Black White, and Green according to this:

http://www.emgpickups.com/downloads/wiringdiagrams/EMG-SPC-RPC-EXG.pdf

Do you have an extra black wire coming from the same spot, or has one of the other colored wires been replaced by a black one? If it has, maybe you can compare it to the diagram of the SPC board to see which one it should be.

[liamjrobertson]

thats great ill try that now, and yeah the spc has five wires coming out of it- not 4 which the diagram shows. there are 2 black wires coming from the spc so im guessing they are both grounds and both soldered to main ground point.

[liamjrobertson]

ok, have tried that. Im still getting a really bad hum when im not touching the guitar- when i touch anything metal ie the strings or one of the swithches it goes and is silent. i know that im acting as the ground when i do that but any idea how i can wire it so it grounds its self? the emg diagram is the one i got with the spc and im sure i've wired it correctly :-(

[JetFixxxer]

you didn't happened to remove your jack? If you have your earth on the hot side of the jack and your live on your ground you will get that hum.

[liamjrobertson]

the wires come pre attached to the jack- black to ground solodered onto vol pot, white wire- which is soldered to the green that goes into the spc and a red wire that goes to the battery

[liamjrobertson]

im not sure if this may be the root of the problem but it seems that the buzz im getting becomes much worse when the tone pot is turned up full.... any ideas? im at a loss

[jtr]

I might be wrong but the EMG SPC is low impediance. I think you need a PA2 to match the impediance.

[dg]

Is your tone pot connected to the volume pot & grounded like this one?

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=HSS_1v_1t_5w

edit- I also noticed that the diagrams for the SPC don't show a ground wire to the bridge or trem claw, since they state that they assume you're using EMG pickups (which don't require you to ground to the bridge). You need to ground to the trem claw if you're using passive pickups. Not sure if that'll help you or not, but just in case...

[RobRR]

5 wires? Are you sure thats not an EMG Afterburner you have? The afterburner has (in this order) white, black, black, green and red wires.

[dg]

Looking at the Afterburner diagrams, both black wires are grounds. They show the second one wired to the sleeve of the output jack. It should be pretty easy to tell if you have an Afterburner by looking at the diagram, because the layout of the wires is completely different from the SPC.

http://www.emgpickups.com/downloads/wiringdiagrams/EMG-AB.pdf

[liamjrobertson]

wow thanks for all the response guys, heres what i done today then- in response to jtr's post i looked at the PA2 on emg website. I dont need the PA2 however there was a wiring diagram on there that did show wiring for the PA2 combined with the SPC and BINGO the SPC showed 2 black ground wires coming off (5 wires in total ) So i rewired the grounds- as i originally had both from the SPC going to the same ground- so 1 from the spc to the ground on vol pot, disconnected the ground from the jack at the ground at the vol pot end and attacted the remaining 2 black grounds together. RESULT- no more buzz, yey.......however.....
What im left with now is a playable guitar with no buzz but when i just touch any points on the guitar ie: strings, switches etc i hear a small electrical crackle- which i imagine means its still not grounding properly. Also with all 3 mini swithes in the off position so no pups are on, the buzz comes back..... strange
Any more ideas??
Ps. Many thanks for everyones help on this problem

[Sunbane]

Are the chassis of the mini switches grounded?
Btw, It may be a good idea to wire the unused lug to ground as well.

You may also want to draw a schematic over your wiring, so you can see if you have any ground loops.

[RobRR]

Just an FYI, I didnt groud the chassis of the miniswitches because they were unsolderable. I thought it would be a problem, but it wasnt at all.

Heres a not so great pic of the Model 6 I rewired... might be a little help to you. Notice I used the battery holder as the central ground, works like a charm. Youll need a hot iron to get the solder to stick to it though!

[JetFixxxer]

Everything on you guitar does it make it to ground (Earth) at the same point one way or another.