More electronic woes

Skodadad

I am trying to build the electrics for my archtop and was up until 3am last night trying numerous diagrams for a push pull split on my epiphone swingster single humbucker. Nothing seems to work, volume and tone are fine but I can't get the split to work , I either get just single coil at high volume and the other at low volume (tested by tapping with screwdriver as not in a body) or nothing at all. Is there a way I can test both if the coils individually out if the guitar as I am now wondering if the pickup is faulty. I am struggling with the diagrams as its hard to work out the switch orientation in the images.

ICBM

That does sound like the pickup is either faulty or the wiring to it is wrong. What pickup is it, and what colour coding on the wires?

If you have a multimeter you can test the coils out of the guitar.

Skodadad

It's an epiphone swingster neck humbucker, wires are red green white black and bare. It really has me stumped. I know in the swingster it is factory split but wondering if it's done a special way.

ICBM

How do you have it wired? I can't find any info from a quick online search, but *assuming* it's the same as Gibson (and that is an assumption…) then you should have the black and bare wires going to ground, the red to the volume control, and the green and white together and to the split switch.

There are 24 possible combinations of wiring using these same four colours, and the various manufacturers seem to have made it a mission to use every one…

Do you have a multimeter? If so it's fairly easy to check the coils. If not, it can be done using just the guitar but it will take a fair bit of faffing around.

Skodadad

I have a multimeter @icbm yes, the problem with guitar checks is the fact it's an archtop. Makes it a real faff. I also think a 500k tone pot is way over the top for this guitar, I test fitted it and it's very bright.

ICBM

Skodadad said:

I have a multimeter @icbm yes, the problem with guitar checks is the fact it's an archtop. Makes it a real faff.

You will have to get it out at least once to test it unfortunately. At least if you have a meter you can very easily find out if the pickup is faulty, and how it should be wired if not.

Skodadad said:

I also think a 500k tone pot is way over the top for this guitar, I test fitted it and it's very bright.

It should be fine - but if the pickup is only working as a single coil because it has a partial open circuit, or is wired out of phase with itself (or any combination of those!) then it will be too bright.

dtr

I once degaussed one rail of a humbucker by tapping it with a screwdriver with a neodymium tip when checking my wiring.  Was a pain to work out what had gone wrong, as impedance readings were perfect and everything seemed fine except the sound.

Skodadad

I doubt very much this is neodymium if was from poundland... It may not in fact even be metal

OilCityPickups

Skodadad said:

I doubt very much this is neodymium if was from poundland... It may not in fact even be metal

I sweat Poundland junior hacksaw blades are made out of cheese.