Strat wiring issues

giggsy

There hasn't been a good strat wiring question for a while! ?

Man, I struggled last night - got so confused with so many different wiring diagrams, and in the end couldnt get it right... had no problems changing pickups
before, but a strats a totally different story.

Here's the pickguard in its entirety

Close up of the pickup selector

Please, if possible, could someone guide me through it like a primary school kid (or matriculant these days). Solder the red wire from the neck pickup to... etc etc. I'd really appreciate it. :-[

guidothepimmp

dude, that is a weird looking switch?! can honestly say thats the 1st time Ive seen one of those..

Do you know which "connector on the green circuit board" belongs to which position on the switch? Thats the 1st step..

giggsy

guidothepimmp wrote dude, that is a weird looking switch?! can honestly say thats the 1st time Ive seen one of those..

Do you know which "connector on the green circuit board" belongs to which position on the switch? Thats the 1st step..

I know... possibly, but I may be wrong, it looks like the first one is Neck, second and third are Neck, Middle, 4th is Middle, fifth and sixth are Middle, Bridge and seventh is bridge - would that make sense?

guidothepimmp

hmmm.. lemme do some reading..

AlanRatcliffe

That's a Cor-Tek switch (Mighty Mite) - I've only ever replaced those with CRLs, never fitted one, so I'm not sure of the pins. Interesting in that yours seems to only have seven contacts, not eight. At an educated guess these are the pinouts (as pictured):

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 - Neck pickup hot
2 - Middle pickup hot
3 - Bridge pickup hot
4 - Output
5 - Neck pickup tone
6 - Middle pickup tone
7 - Bridge pickup tone

I'm guessing Mighty Mite Dual rail pickups too? Colours don't match up though, so I'm guessing these are OEM models in a Cort S2600 or something... Black is already tied to ground - correct? In that case:

Black - Ground to back of pot
Red - Hot to switch
Yellow + White - solder together and tape off

STEPS:
1. Connect your pickup hots to the switch in the relevant places
2. Connect your pickup grounds to back of volume pot
3. Connect switch output to volume pot left lug (when lugs are towards you and pot is shaft down)
4. Connect pot right lug to pot casing
5. Connect jack hot to pot wiper (middle lug)
6. Connect jack ground to back of volume pot
7. TEST - plug in to amp and make sure all the coils work and the pickups are in the right order on the switch (tap the blades with a screwdriver while plugged in and turned up). If something is wrong, stop and come back to me. Otherwise, if all is right:

8. Connect tone control wiper (centre lug) to the relevant tone contact on the switch (depends on which pickups you want tone on). I would connect the first tone (closest to the volume) to the neck pickup and second to the bridge (gives you tone on all but the centre switch position).
9. Connect outside lug (right hand one if the lugs are towards you) of each tone pot to the pot casing
10. Connect the two tone pot casings together with a wire
11. Connect the tone capacitor between the volume pot casing and the first tone casing
12. Test tone controls

giggsy

Alan, you're a champion, thanks!

I'll maybe get around to it tonight - depending on how much beer gets consumed during the football - otherwise I'll do it tomorrow and report back. Guido = thanks also for your time man and for having a look

AlanRatcliffe

POST ABOVE EDITED
...now with added volume control. :-[

guidothepimmp

Hey no prob.. didnt do much though :-[

Alan, great knowledge!

giggsy

Alan Ratcliffe wrote That's a Cor-Tek switch (Mighty Mite) - I've only ever replaced those with CRLs, never fitted one, so I'm not sure of the pins. Interesting in that yours seems to only have seven contacts, not eight. At an educated guess these are the pinouts (as pictured):

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 - Neck pickup hot
2 - Middle pickup hot
3 - Bridge pickup hot
4 - Output
5 - Neck pickup tone
6 - Middle pickup tone
7 - Bridge pickup tone

I'm guessing Mighty Mite Dual rail pickups too? Colours don't match up though, so I'm guessing these are OEM models in a Cort S2600 or something... Black is already tied to ground - correct? In that case:

Black - Ground to back of pot
Red - Hot to switch
Yellow + White - solder together and tape off

STEPS:
1. Connect your pickup hots to the switch in the relevant places
2. Connect your pickup grounds to back of volume pot
3. Connect switch output to volume pot left lug (when lugs are towards you and pot is shaft down)
4. Connect pot right lug to pot casing
5. Connect jack hot to pot wiper (middle lug)
6. Connect jack ground to back of volume pot
7. TEST - plug in to amp and make sure all the coils work and the pickups are in the right order on the switch (tap the blades with a screwdriver while plugged in and turned up). If something is wrong, stop and come back to me. Otherwise, if all is right:

8. Connect tone control wiper (centre lug) to the relevant tone contact on the switch (depends on which pickups you want tone on). I would connect the first tone (closest to the volume) to the neck pickup and second to the bridge (gives you tone on all but the centre switch position).
9. Connect outside lug (right hand one if the lugs are towards you) of each tone pot to the pot casing
10. Connect the two tone pot casings together with a wire
11. Connect the tone capacitor between the volume pot casing and the first tone casing
12. Test tone controls

Thanks Alan - get all the way to Step 7, tested the pickups, and although there was no loud squeal or noise, there was a slight
'scratching' sound - maybe that was were I went wrong... Did the rest, strung up a string and nothing. But... the red and white of the pickups were originally twisted together - could it not have maybe been the yellow ones that I should have connected to the switch in step 1?

AlanRatcliffe

Ah! You should have said earlier - would have made it easier to figure out. ? I was going with the usual way a Mighty Mite is wound. So tie red and white together and yellow to the switch. Try it on one pickup first to make sure...

giggsy

Alan Ratcliffe wrote Ah! You should have said earlier - would have made it easier to figure out. ? I was going with the usual way a Mighty Mite is wound. So tie red and white together and yellow to the switch. Try it on one pickup first to make sure...

Very stupid of me, I know, but in fairness I just needed to do something to get over my teams horrible loss in a big game, so wasn't thinking straight... If I can miraculously get my daughter down for a nap just now I'll try switching one of the pup's wires.

UPDATE: No go... going to take everything off and rewire - need to do a neater job anyways. Hopefully that sorts it all out (when I tap the pups with a screwdriver, it should be quite an audible noise that comes through the amp, right?)

giggsy

Nothing is ever straightforward... redid everything, tested it with one string and worked! Screwed everything back together and, occasionally, can hear some feedback through the amp... had enough last night so left it and will try again during the week - maybe when I was putting everything back together (it was quite a tight squeeze) something came loose

DonovanB

Did you remember to solder the jack on? I've forgotten that before....

What makes a pot noisy? While we're on this... I put a new pot in and the 21yo original was much quieter...