New pickups - soldering help!

skullfunkerry

I've bought a couple of new pickups for my Charvel, and I thought I'd have a go at fitting them myself rather than pay someone £30 for what everyone says is a few minutes work. I figured worst case scenario is at least I'll have physically fitted them even if I have to pay someone to fix the wiring that I got wrong...

Here's the Seymour Duncan wiring diagram for what's fitted at the moment:

And here's the info that came with the new pickups:

Am I right in thinking that rather than rewiring everything from scratch I can just cut the pickup cable and connect the new one, leaving the pots, switch and jack alone? Also, the Seymour Duncan red wire is the green one on the new pickups, right?

Apologies if I'm being stupid... I've looked and looked at this and it just doesn't seem to sink in for some reason...

Funkfingers

There are several things to consider.

1) Translating the pickup conductor colour codes.
2) Deciding which coils you want to be operational in split mode.

The Duncan diagram results in the two stud coils remaining operational. To get the same thing to happen with your new pickups, use black as the output, white/green as the series link, red/bare as ground.

skullfunkerry said:

Am I right in thinking that, rather than rewiring everything from scratch, I can just cut the pickup cable and connect the new one, leaving the pots, switch and jack alone?

Affirmative. (My preference is to desolder the original pickup conductors rather than cut anything.)

Mount the new pickups into the guitar. 

On a Charvel with rear-mounted controls and no pickguard, thread the uncut output cables for the new pickups through to the control cavity. Only strip the insulation from the four-con + shield cable once the ends are protruding from the control cavity.





 

bloodandtears

So your Charvel has a push/pull Volume pot??

Using the new colours...I believe it should be wired..

Black (Ground) to the back of the Vol pot.

Red to the Switch.

Green & White to the appropriate lug on the Push/Pull pot...

@ICBM ; could help here too..

btw.. you can't really damage anything with a trial and error approach.. just don't overheat the back of the pots...

ICBM

bloodandtears said:

So your Charvel has a push/pull Volume pot??

Using the new colours...I believe it should be wired..

Black (Ground) to the back of the Vol pot.

Red to the Switch.

Green & White to the appropriate lug on the Push/Pull pot...

Yes, that's correct - although as Funkfingers said, that will coil split to the outer coils instead of the inner ones. If that's an issue, swap red and black.

bloodandtears said:

btw.. you can't really damage anything with a trial and error approach.. just don't overheat the back of the pots...

Be careful - it's quite easy to damage push-pulls with too much heat.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

bloodandtears said:
you can't really damage anything with a trial and error approach.. just don't overheat the back of the pots...

Be careful - it's quite easy to damage push-pulls with too much heat.

It also pays to be tidy on the push-pull DPDT contact soldering. Make certain that the green/white pairs do not come into physical contact across the terminals.

Grumpyrocker

skullfunkerry said:

Am I right in thinking that rather than rewiring everything from scratch I can just cut the pickup cable and connect the new one, leaving the pots, switch and jack alone? Also, the Seymour Duncan red wire is the green one on the new pickups, right?

I've done this several times. I've had absolutely no issues connecting pickups like this without soldering and it's made changing pickups in and out really easy. Just make sure you insulate the joins with some tape.