Pickup troubleshooting - no signal

BuddytheReow

BuddytheReow

Moderator
Not a PPCB troubleshooting per se, but troubleshooting nonetheless. I've got a Seymour Duncan Dimebucker that worked great, but now no signal gets passes through to my amp. I've desoldered it from the switch and tested it with a simple alligator clip and nothing comes through. The neck pup works just fine so it's not the switch or pot solder job. I've got enough cable I can cut and try again with fresh leads, but once I cut I can't uncut. I guess my question is how best to find out where the hot signal is being severed? Can I "rewire" this pickup or is it trash?

Edit: in my quick search I think I can simply rewire the leads and try it that way. The hard way I guess, lol
 
Last edited:
NVM, I looked it up. Measure between the green and black wires. You should have maybe around 10 to 15kOhm or so. The red and white wires should be connected together and taped off, ignore them.
 
Green and black (assuming hot and ground) have no reading on my DMM.

From the time of OP to now I opened up the pup and resoldered the hot joint. It seemed to bring it back to life, so I closed it back up and reinstalled it. Worked fine for 2 minutes and now it sounds very anemic, almost like it's on it's own volume pot turned waaay down. Sounds like there's a bad connection somewhere
 
OK then. Undo the tape that covers the joint between red and white. Then measure between green and (red&white), and also between black and (red&white). If one of these mesures a few kohm and the other an open circuit, then you know which side your problem is on. If both are open circuit, you're a bit SOL...
 
Red/white and bare/green gives me 8kohms or so. Black is dead. Do I need to open up the pickup and fix the black lead or just be lazy and use red/white as the new hot?
 
Red/white is where the two coils connect in series. If you use it as the new hot, you just got yourself a single coil in a humbucker housing. I'd open the pickup and try to find a thin broken magnet wire.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top