Tokai Strat wiring help needed!

fretfinder

If anyone’s familiar with 1980s Tokai Strat wiring I could do with some help please. The volume pot broke many years ago and I had a ‘tech’ replace it and asked if he could wire the bridge to the bottom tone control while he was at it. It came back all done, except he’d also disabled the top tone control from the neck pickup (no idea why!). Can anyone see from these pics what I’d need to do to get the top tone control back working on the neck pickup again? Many thanks. 

https://i.imgur.com/N60cLAO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/095S0Ui.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/wXd6nnt.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ppPRy26.jpg

paulnb57

I think a wire from the middle of the first tone pot to the second tag from the bottom right of the switch alongside the hot wire from the middle pickup, should do it

ICBM

The switch has been wired completely wrong. It should be like this:



If you want the lower tone control to work on the bridge pickup as well, connect the empty terminal to the one directly below it, where the wire goes to the lower tone pot.

fretfinder

Thanks @paulnb57 and @ICBM. I really don’t want to rewire the whole thing as everything works fine, except for the one small thing I want to fix. It also looks different from other Strat electrics in that, as you can see in the pics, the controls all sit on a metal plate which has soldering tags itself and some of the wires are soldered to the plate.

normula1

Is there anything connected to the centre pin on the upper tone control?

fretfinder

normula1 said:

Is there anything connected to the centre pin on the upper tone control?

Nope. But there’s a blob of solder and a teeny bit of red plastic-covered wire on the centre tag, presumably left there from when the ‘tech’ disabled the tone on the neck pickup. All I need to know I think is where was the other end of that red wire originally attached!

normula1

I think you're going have to wire the switch as per ICBM's post. The tone control capacitor and earth connections should be fine, just do the switch end.

prowla

This is my Tokai Silver Star's wiring ('scuse the coating of dust - it's been sitting on a shelf waiting for me to sort the body out and reassemble it).

The middle tone pot's centre tab connects to the neck-most tab on the pickguard edge of the switch.

ICBM

fretfinder said:

Thanks @paulnb57 and @ICBM. I really don’t want to rewire the whole thing as everything works fine, except for the one small thing I want to fix. It also looks different from other Strat electrics in that, as you can see in the pics, the controls all sit on a metal plate which has soldering tags itself and some of the wires are soldered to the plate.

You can't fix it simply by adding one single connection, because the switch has been rewired incorrectly - the rotor on the second side has been connected to the lower tone control instead of the volume control. The simplest way of fixing it is to redo it properly.

Don't worry about the grounding plate arrangement or the tone cap, they can stay as they are - it's just the switch that's the problem.

prowla said:

This is my Tokai Silver Star's wiring ('scuse the coating of dust - it's been sitting on a shelf waiting for me to sort the body out and reassemble it).

The middle tone pot's centre tab connects to the neck-most tab on the pickguard edge of the switch.

That's a completely different type of switch - don't copy the connections on that, they're in a different order.

The one in the Seymour Duncan diagram is correct for the switch in fretfinder's guitar.

Funkfingers

fretfinder said:

I really don’t want to rewire the whole thing 

You do not need to.

The three white wires carrying the signals from the pickups are fine.

What the tech did wrong was remove a short, insulated jumper wire that connects the two "wiper" contacts on the two poles of the selector switch. (Probably explains the hanging short red wire.) He then ran a jumper wire from the Bridge PU terminal to the second pole of the selector switch and the blue wire from the wiper terminal to the lower tone pot. (In this configuration, it can only work on selector switch positions one and two. B and B+C.)

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

The three white wires carrying the signals from the pickups are fine.

What the tech did wrong was remove a short, insulated jumper wire that connects the two "wiper" contacts on the two poles of the selector switch. (Probably explains the hanging short red wire.) He then ran a jumper wire from the Bridge PU terminal to the second pole of the selector switch and the blue wire from the wiper terminal to the lower tone pot.

No - the blue wire is connected to the rotor on the second side - remember that the two sides are reversed.

Really, just undo it all and redo it like the Duncan diagram - it's only eight connections (and one new bit of wire). That's the quickest, easiest and guaranteed to work correctly.

In theory you don't need to move the pickup connections to the other side, but then the blue wire won't reach to the terminal it needs to go to.

fretfinder

Thanks chaps. I willl have to get the soldering iron out and start psyching myself up! 

sixstringsupplies

If all you're after is classic Strat wiring but want the second tone control to work on the bridge pickup, then use this diagram. It's the same as ICBM's but the "optional" red wire is what connects the tone to bridge.

fretfinder

Thanks all. Help still required pleeease!  Calling @ICBM @paulnb57 @normula1 @Funkfingers @sixstringsupplies! So I’ve rewired it, the switch only, according to the diagram. I’ve added a short jumper between tags 2 & 3  And left everything else on the pots etc alone, I think. So now the bottom tone control works on all three pickups and the top tone control doesn’t affect anything. And overall it seems buzzier than before. Can anyone spot what’s up with the wiring now, or if I did something wrong? Many thanks again...

https://i.imgur.com/gcU47DF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/xzrRB8d.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uiCLpm7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yietMOT.jpg

ICBM

That looks like it’s wired correctly. The only thing I can think of that would explain that is if the switch is broken... does the rotor on the tone control side move correctly when you operate the lever?

prowla

Is the switch earthed?

prowla

I've noticed that the Vol is a B250k, whereas the Tones are A250k...

ICBM

prowla said:

Is the switch earthed?

It doesn’t need to be - the frame is contacting the shielding plate.

prowla said:

I've noticed that the Vol is a B250k, whereas the Tones are A250k...

Which is correct if you prefer a gentler volume taper at the top end.

Aha... looking at it on a bigger screen I can see something - there's a blob of solder that's fallen down onto the switch rotor - you can see it clearly in the third pic. If that's being carried round with the rotor it could be shorting the tone control contacts.

Funkfingers

Unless the upper tone pot has its own dedicated capacitor, the wiring in the photograph cannot work as intended.

With a single, shared capacitor, the connections to the tone pots have to be exactly as per the diagrams supplied above. i.e. Centre terminal of lower pot, hard wire linked to third terminal of upper tone pot, then, the capacitor grounded to the chassis of the upper tone pot.

In the photographs, the one capacitor is grounded to the shielding plate. By this method, the hard wire link between the two tone controls acts in reverse to the intended use. Instead, the signal for the neck pickup passes through to the lower tone pot.

If the upper tone pot does anything at all, it may act as a volume control on the neck pickup when that is selected.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

Unless the upper tone pot has its own dedicated capacitor, the wiring in the photograph cannot work as intended.

With a single, shared capacitor, the connections to the tone pots have to be exactly as per the diagrams supplied above. i.e. Centre terminal of lower pot, hard wire linked to third terminal of upper tone pot, then, the capacitor grounded to the chassis of the upper tone pot.

In the photographs, the one capacitor is grounded to the shielding plate. By this method, the hard wire link between the two tone controls acts in reverse to the intended use. Instead, the signal for the neck pickup passes through to the lower tone pot.

No, this is not correct. The tone pots work as simple variable resistances and the order of the connections doesn't matter as long as it's the centre and counterclockwise terminals that are used.

The only difference between the wiring in the guitar and the Fender scheme is that the capacitor is connected to the other end of the link between the pots. It will work exactly as intended.

The problem is at the switch.

fretfinder

ICBM said: Aha... looking at it on a bigger screen I can see something - there's a blob of solder that's fallen down onto the switch rotor - you can see it clearly in the third pic. If that's being carried round with the rotor it could be shorting the tone control contacts.

Brilliant, you are of course right! I’ve removed the blob of solder and the two tones are now working as they should, inc the bottom one working on bridge as well as middle pickup. 

Many thanks to @ICBM and all who contributed.