Pickup suddenly dead-ish?

[marnold]

I've got Lace Hot Golds in my Squier 51 which I've been pretty happy with. Unfortunately I went to play it the other day and I thought my neck pickup was dead. If I turned the volume WAY up on my amp, I could hear it normally. I opened up the controls. It looked like some of the leads might have been bent funny, so I cut them back, re-stripped them, and soldered them back on. Same thing. I soldered the hot output to the lug for the bridge pickup (also removing the bridge pickup's hot lead) to see if the switch was the problem, but it was the same thing. I pulled out the pickup and inspected all the leads to see if something was bare/shorting somewhere, but no dice.

By the way, the bridge pup still works fine.

Thoughts?

[duhvoodooman]

If you have a multimeter handy, try measuring the resistance across the pickup, i.e. between the hot and ground leads. For the Lace Hot Gold, it should be about 6.0 Kohms, from what I see HERE (http://www.wwbw.com/Lace-Hot-Gold-Single-Coil-Pickup-305414-i1167963.wwbw). The best way to do this would be with the leads disconnected from the guitar, but if you want a quick diagnostic reading, you can use THIS METHOD (http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/8311).

An infinite resistance would indicate an internal break in the pickup somewhere, whereas a significantly lower resistance would indicate a short.

[marnold]

Well, I thought of that but it only confuses me more. I tried this method with my Jackson, worked great. Then I tried it with my Squier '51 and the oddest thing happened.

My bridge pickup comes back as dead, even though it works fine.
My bridge pickup with the coil tap pulled shows the proper ohmage.
My neck pickup comes back dead.

I tried it with the pickup pulled out before and couldn't get a reading either. I'm not sure what all of this means.

[kidsmoke]

holy crap....just saw that 6 year old thread on multimeter usage. awesome. I had no idea that was there.

[marnold]

OK, I'm beginning to think that there's a short in my switch somewhere. I hard-wired the pickup directly to the jack and it worked. That would also explain why my bridge pickup also reads open when I try to check its ohmage, but it works when I tap it. A new switch would be way cheaper than a new pup.

Anyone know of a Gibson-style switch that would fit in a Squier '51 cavity?

[marnold]

Managed to pick up an official Gibson switch (the more horizontal kind) from Guitar Center. The one dude there said that it's a rebadged Switchcraft switch. Now to see if it'll fit the control panel...

[marnold]

Unfortunately the Gibson switch will not work. But I came across this on evilBay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Squier-51-Aluminum-Control-Plate-Brand-New-With-Pot-and-Switch-/380915107968?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item58b04f4880

It would seem to be a good replacement. I messaged them and they said that the push-pull pot is a 500K Allparts. Hopefully it would have a better taper than my existing one does. If I'd get this one, I'd wire it for series-parallel instead of coil cut. I've always preferred that and think it would work well with my ultra-hot Hot Gold bridge 'bucker. Thoughts?

[marnold]

OK, it's not the switch. I think I may have made a mistake when I hot wired the neck pup to the jack last time. It think my amp might still have been cranked, making me think it worked. Also, I hooked the bridge pickup to the neck pickup lug on the switch and it worked fine, eliminating the switch as a culprit. I've done the following with the neck pickup to try to fix it/diagnose the problem. None of them helped:

1) Re-trimmed and tinned all leads and reconnecting them properly
2) Hooked it directly up to the volume pot, bypassing the switch
3) Hooked it directly to the output jack

In every case it's the same thing. There is output, but I have to crank my amp to hear it. It sounds like an internal short to me, but why would that happen when that guitar has not even left my house since I installed those pups? It really has been treated with kid gloves. I don't really want to order another pickup to be honest. Is there anything else I can try before I have to take that drastic of a step?

Edit: I noticed that Lace has a five year warranty. It'll be two years in February that I got them. I'll have to see what they say tomorrow.

Paging DVM and all you modders/solderers!

[duhvoodooman]

I would disconnect the neck pickup from the guitar completely and measure the resistance through it with a multimeter. If it's a 4-wire pickup, check to make sure that the two wires that are supposed to be soldered together & taped (in a stock installation) are making a good connection. If it checks out, then re-install it and use your multimeter to check the circuit continuity on both sides of the pickup--the signal side all the way to the tip of the output jack, and the ground all the way to the sleeve of the output jack. Keep in mind that a good ground connection is just as important as the "hot" connection in getting your signal through a pickup.

A couple of good close-up photos would be helpful in visualizing what's going on. They must be well-lit and well-focused. And BIG.

[marnold]

Actually it's a three wire pickup: two grounds and a hot.

When I completely unsolder the pickup my multimeter doesn't read anything. I pulled out my old Jackson single coil and tried that. It reads 6.30K, just like it should. When I had the pickup completely out of the guitar, I tried touching the probes to the two solder points on the underside of the pickup. It read nothing.

[duhvoodooman]

By "nothing", do you mean zero resistance or infinite resistance? Big difference. Although either way, sounds like the pickup is shot. Should be somewhere around 6 Kohms.

[marnold]

By "nothing", do you mean zero resistance or infinite resistance? Big difference. Although either way, sounds like the pickup is shot. Should be somewhere around 6 Kohms.

Well, I've got a Sperry multimeter. When I turn it on and set it to 20K, the screen has a 1 on the far left. I assume that means infinite resistance (the manual is less than helpful). If I touch the probes together, it reads 0.00. I assume in the second scenario is how I can use this thing to detect continuity.

Anyway, when I touch the probes to the leads to the pickup (one to the hot lead and the other to the two ground wires soldered together) the meter doesn't change at all. The 1 on the far left stays there. If I try it with my Jackson pickup, the display immediately goes to around 6.20, right where it should be.

I hope this makes sense. I've got a call into Lace's tech support.

The good news is that all of this futzing around finally got me to install my Switchcraft jack. So I've got that going for me.

[duhvoodooman]

Yeah, sounds like you have an "open" in the pickup somewhere. These are often right at one terminus or the other of the windings (there may be more than two--I don't know the Lace Sensor construction), so inspect the pickup carefully. Is it a simple matter to remove the plastic cover from the Lace Sensor to get at the winding terminus connections?

[marnold]

Yeah, sounds like you have an "open" in the pickup somewhere. These are often right at one terminus or the other of the windings (there may be more than two--I don't know the Lace Sensor construction), so inspect the pickup carefully. Is it a simple matter to remove the plastic cover from the Lace Sensor to get at the winding terminus connections?

I was mistaken on the solder points on the bottom of the pickup. there are two metal tabs but only one of them has something soldered to it: the green ground wire. I'm assuming that grounds the pickup proper while the white wire is the ground end of the pickup windings. If I touch the probes on my multimeter two those two metal tabs, I get a reading of 0.00, indicating to me that they are both a part of the pickups metal housing.

I looked at the pickup and there doesn't seem to be an obvious way to remove the cover. I really don't want to mess anything up and void my warranty. I'll have to look around online.

[duhvoodooman]

A quick Google search indicates that removing the cover of a lace Sensor is not impossible, but is tricky business. I'd leave it alone. I think your next move should be to contact the folks at Lace.

[marnold]

A quick Google search indicates that removing the cover of a lace Sensor is not impossible, but is tricky business. I'd leave it alone. I think your next move should be to contact the folks at Lace.

Yeah, I called them and left a message. The guy was supposed to get back to me. Unless he tried to call when my wife briefly called me today, he didn't. It's OK. I've got just over three years left on my warranty :)

Another quick Google search seemed to indicate that Lace was having some QC issues in 2013. Might be the problem with mine. I like that pickup so I want one back.

Good thing I didn't order any new electronics. I'll have to try to return this switch to GC when I take my kids back to school on Monday.

[marnold]

I finally got through to Lace technical support just now. I've got an RMA number. I won't be able to send it out until Monday but hopefully in a few weeks I'll have a replacement.

[marnold]

At long last I got my replacement in the mail today. It's awfully hard to get through to the tech support guy at Lace. Sounds like part of the problem was NAMM, but still. Anyway, I'm just happy to have a replacement. Checked it out with my multimeter and it checks fine. Now to solder . . .

[Robert]

Good luck with the install, Marnold!

[marnold]

Good luck with the install, Marnold!

Thanks. Maybe I can get to it later today or tomorrow. I'm also going to finally shorten the leads on the bridge humbucker and rewire the push-pull pot so that it will go series-parallel. I think I'll like that tone better for one thing. Plus the neck pup is not RWRP. Even though the Lace pups are low noise, they are not noiseless. So in the middle position with the bridge split, I'd have the most noise instead of the least. If I'm doing my math right, the humbucker in parallel would have roughly the same resistance as the neck single (26.4K bridge, 6K neck). I realize that it will still sound quite different.

[duhvoodooman]

Your bridge humbucker has 26.4Kohms resistance?? Wow! Don't think I've seen one that high!

[marnold]

Your bridge humbucker has 26.4Kohms resistance?? Wow! Don't think I've seen one that high!

Yep. Shows that resistance can be a deceiving measurement. It's hot, but not crushingly so. It's also not muddy as all get out, although it certainly is not a bright pickup.

[marnold]

CRAP! After busting my kiester to take off the strings, disconnect the bridge pup, clean off the push-pull pot, shorten the leads on the bridge pup, get everything rewired and restring, I realize that Lace's diagram is upside down. So if the push-pull pot is pushed in, it's in parallel. Pulled out, it's in series. I don't really feel like pulling it apart all over so I may just keep it the way it is and see how I like it. It is brighter than I expected in parallel.

[tjcurtin1]

I hate it when that kind of thing happens! At least it's just a reversal, and everything actually works right otherwise...

[marnold]

I hate it when that kind of thing happens! At least it's just a reversal, and everything actually works right otherwise...

Remarkably, yes. I got everything exactly right the first time . . . albeit upside-down.

[marnold]

Tonight I'm going to revert it to coil shunt. The parallel mode is bright to the point of being shrill. My guess is that because the pickup has a good amount low mids, those frequencies get canceled, leaving it all top end. Oddly enough, I also found that the middle position sounds almost exactly the same whether in series or parallel. Coil shunting provides two more distinct tones. I suppose it stands to reason because a Lace Dually is closer to two single coils together than a typical humbucker is.