JB wired green to black...?

[Freakboy]

Hey, I recently decided I'd do a coil split on the JB in the bridge of my eclipse. So, after getting myself a push pull pot, I open up the back of my guitar to find the green and black wires have been soldered together rather than the red and white ones, the red then soldered to volume and the white to ground.

So I was wondering whether or not I should bother soldering everything as per the SD diagrams. I know the pickup isn't out of phase with itself, but being wired this way would it be out of phase with my neck '59, or produce any other unwanted tonal characteristics? It would be easier to just leave well enough alone and wire the green/black to the push pull, but I'd like to know if there are any reasons I shouldn't.

[Robert S.]

I'd really need to know the guitars pickups and switching to tell you exactly why the guitar is wired that way. Are the JB and the 59 the only pickups in the guitar or is there a single coil as well? Is there a split option wired into the switching?

Normally the black is used as the hot wire and the green is grounded but you can use any of the 4 conductors as hot depending on the other pickups in the guitar to meet rw/rp conditions, especially when combining SD humbucking pickups with single coils or other makers pickups.

If you have only the JB and the 59 in that guitar then both should be wired black to hot and green to ground. I need a little more information to give you better advice or suggestions.

[Freakboy]

Sorry, it's just the JB and the 59. The 59 isn't 4 conductor, so it has the braided grounded and the black to hot. The guitar wiring is for 2 humbucker, 2 volume, 1 tone, and 3 way switch, exact same as the wiring diagram on SD (except for the hot red and grounded white, and the single conductor neck pickup).

Any other information needed?

[Robert S.]

That will do it.

The 59 is no doubt wired correctly because I cant imagine anyone purposefully wiring the shield to hot. The thing is though, the combined position should sound pretty off. The combined position should be both out of phase and the wind direction is wrong. Unless the JB was wired wrong from the factory with the magnet flipped as well you should use the SD suggested wiring.

[Freakboy]

Alright, thanks, I'll try wiring it the suggested way and see what happens.

[Robert S.]

How does the middle position sound now?

[Freakboy]

Middle position sounds a bit more bassy now and cleaner actually. Thanks for the help.

I think some of my connections might be off though, because I'm getting interference through my JB when I turn the front face of my guitar perpendicular to the amp. Any suggestions on fixing that? I'm not the best at soldering but all the connections look fine to me.

I'm assuming it isn't the mainz hum either, as it doesn't sound like 60hz. But there isn't that much of a difference when I split the coils, only a slight thinning of the sound. Any ideas, did I mess something up badly?

[Robert S.]

No you didn't and the added depth of tone in the middle position indicates to me that the JB was wired wrong in the guitar as I suspected.

Normally hum that changes as you face the amp when you are using humbuckers indicates a grounding problem, often in you amps source voltage supply but other things can cause it as well. Since your 59 doesn't exhibit the same hum (which can be slightly less because the 59 has only 50% of the winds as the JB, more or less) I suspect that you have a components issue, usually a bad pot. Replace your bridge positions pots and cap and I can almost guarantee that the problem will clear up.

It always works for me............

[Freakboy]

Sorry for the long time to respond.

Actually I did notice a bit of noise in my neck pickup too, so I'm going to resolder some of the ground connections I changed when doing the coil split. I'm still troubled at the lack of any strong difference between the JB split and normal. I can only notice the difference now if I strike a chord and switch the coil on and off, I would never be able to tell if the coil split is engaged just from the sound. I'll let you know how it sounds after I resolder some of the connections

[ArtieToo]

Middle position sounds a bit more bassy now and cleaner actually. Thanks for the help.

I think some of my connections might be off though, because I'm getting interference through my JB when I turn the front face of my guitar perpendicular to the amp. Any suggestions on fixing that? I'm not the best at soldering but all the connections look fine to me.

I'm assuming it isn't the mainz hum either, as it doesn't sound like 60hz. But there isn't that much of a difference when I split the coils, only a slight thinning of the sound. Any ideas, did I mess something up badly?

Its possible that you just discovered why the JB was wired "inside-out". Use this Duncan diagram as a reference. Notice that they have the middle humbucker wired like your JB was for splitting. I'm guessing thats to keep the two pups noise-cancelling when split.

If you reverse the green and black, you'll be out-of-phase. But wiring it inside-out like that it will still be in-phase, but you'll select different coils when split. I'm somewhat guessing as this is new to me too.