Tele wiring earth buzz? (mojo broadcaster )

John_P

First time I’ve change a tele pickup so apologies for asking the obvious. 

   
I just fitted a mojo broadcaster and I’m getting fair amount of noise.    
Neck pickup is quiet and sounds fine.   

The bridge is buzzing, now as I understood it the metal plate should mean it doesn’t need an earthy wire to the bridge, so either the mojo pickup does need an earth adding or could it be that the wiring polarity from the pickup to the switch and earth makes a difference and needs reversing?

SteveRobinson

Are the pickups in phase?

If not, yes flip the wires at the controls.

If they are in phase, then on the bridge pickup, move the jumper wire that goes from one terminal, soldered to the base plate, to the other terminal.

Don't use this much solder though

ICBM

In my opinion it’s better to remove the ground connection to the pickup baseplate and add a true ground wire under the bridge that’s soldered directly to the back of the volume pot. The original Fender method is neat and saves an extra wire, but it’s common for the pickup to make a poor contact with the bridge when the screws get a bit old and rusted.

Funkfingers

John_P said:

Neck pickup is quiet and sounds fine.

What pickup is this? 

SteveRobinson said:

on the bridge pickup, move the jumper wire that goes from one terminal, soldered to the base plate, to the other terminal.

If the Mojo single coil pickup is pre-owned, it is possible that the previous owner has already made this mod.

On a modified pickup, connecting the pickup conductors according to their insulation colours would place the metal baseplate in the signal path. There, it will act like an antenna, exaggerating all noise and interference sources in the vicinity.

John_P

Thanks chaps.    Reversed the connections to the switch and pot and it’s a lot better.   With some gain to exaggerate it there is still a bit of noise when not touching any of the metal parts so I’ll run an extra earth wire anyway as a belt and braces.    

Good to know about tele wiring though and an interesting design compared to just having a wire to the bridge.