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Pickup Wires
http://mowrystrings.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10123&t=43782
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Author:  mlucas123 [ Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Pickup Wires

I have this humbucker thats been sitting around and I would like to use it on an experiment guitar. I don't have a lot of knowledge about pickups. I would like to do a simple 1 hum 1 vol. I'm having trouble identifying the wires though. A red, a white and a bare wire. If someone could help me that would be great. Thanks


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Author:  Ron Bales [ Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Pickup Wires

Do you have an ohm meter?

The bare wire will go to ground. One of the other wires will be "hot" the output wire, the other is likely to be a tap to turn it into a single coil. Best guess is that the red wire is "hot."

The other possibility is that the white and bare go together and to ground.

You can experiment. Without cutting the lead to length just tack solder the leads into place and see what works best. It won't be subtle.

Author:  Sandywood [ Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Pickup Wires

The bare wire is ground.

The other two are wires from the coils. You can't wire it up wrong "thinking" either the white is ground-red is hot or the other way around. Your ears may tell you which you prefer the sound of UNLESS it is an active pickup.
If it's an active pup then the red will go to battery-bare to ground-white to volume.

IF the pickup is being used alone and it's not active then the wires from the coils are of less importance. If it is going to be used with other pickups then series/parallel and polarity (magnet N/S) may require further investigation.

Because one of only two coil leads is red I'm inclined to think it's an active pickup.

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