project, help?

[Squireman131]

well right now i have a very old guitar torn apart, its a rok axe? its old and was my first guitar but hasnt been working for years and im turning it into a project. i have a tone, volume and on/on switch and the original humbucker which i hope is in working order. id like to wire it so that the humbucker would turn from both coils activated to only one but dont really know how. can i even do it because the humbucker only has two wires coming from it? please if anyone has any schematics could you show me them or give me advice? and i really dont wanna buy anything because i have no money and this is just kinda to get a feel for guitar wiring before i venture to my bass or my guitar. for some reason the switch only has 3 posts? and one ground post

[ted s]

Sorry to say Squireman, but a 2 wire humbucker can't be tapped, you'll need a 3 wire hummer for a straight forward split or 4 wire to do fancier stuff.
I think there are some good diagrams on the Seymor Duncan site.
The existing switch will give one, the other or both pups.

[duhvoodooman]

+1 on what Ted said.

BTW, you said this guitar "hasn't been working for years..." What's wrong with it? Do you know exactly what's broken?

[player]

interesting article here:http://www.excellentleads.com/Splitting_the_humbucker_inst.html
DVM hasa good info page too

[Squireman131]

to ted s- do you know of anything i could do that would have a effect to the tone or anything so i can use the switch?

to duhvoodooman- i have no clue what is wrong with it i really dont expect to much out of the project, i dont even know if the humbucker works let alone the pots. its more of just a thing to practice guitar electronics and if i can get it to work to have a guitar to mess with.

to player- thanks for the site but seeing as i cant split a 2 wire humbucker i cant use it, maybe if i get a new humbucker or something


To anyone else - i have another electronics question. i have a old bass thats not working i tryed it out the other day and i think its something wrong with the wiring ive olugged it in and when i would turn the pots i could get a little out put from the p/ups but not much and this guitar is only about 3 years old so i dont think its the p/ups. ive got it torn apart all wires desoldered and i used a stewmac diagram to re wire it with the old capacitor but it still doesnt work. i tryed switching some wires but i cant find the problem.

[ted s]

Lots of options available, it just costs money. Just a suggestion, see if you can put it back in working order with the existing parts first. If you're up to it, and have access to a multi-meter, you could tear all the electronic guts out and find out exactly what parts are good and what may be questionable. The pickups will have a fixed resistance reading and the pots will have a variable resistance reading if measured while turning. Since we don't know what kind of pups they are we can't say exactly what that reading should be, but anything from 4000 to 8000 ohms would probably be expected. The pots are probably 500 ohms.
Guy's, if I missed something please chime in.

[Squireman131]

i just got my bass working but i have no volume controls its maxed out, do i have to replace the pot?

[ted s]

Measure those pots and double check your wiring against a known good schematic.