Installing pickups.

[-Gavin-]

Right guys, i have an RR on order and two nice new pickups wanting put in it.

I do not, however want to pay the £30-40 the shop will charge (+ a week and a half without my new guitar) that the local shop will charge.
Thus my question.

How would i install these pickups.
a Seymour DUncan Dimebucker and Invader.

I;ve bought a book on it but it hasn;t come and i would like some advice/instructions/wiring diagrams other than "use a soldering iron"

Anyhelp would be awesome!
thanks.


Ohh the guitar is a Jackson RX10D with one volume control.

 

[the alumnus]

when i replaced my pickups it was quite easy, since i was pulling out humbuckers and replacing them with humbuckers. just unsolder the old wires and solder the new pickup's wires to where the old one was. there were only three for my configuration: positive, negative, and ground. the ground wasn't soldered, but soldered and glued so i had to clip off the old wire. other than that, easy enough. the difficult part was doing the soldering at such an akward angle without dripping any solder onto the delicate electronics.

 

[-Gavin-]

so, basically, you pulled off the humbucker and attatched it to the existing wire?

 

[Indiooo]

Make sure you do follow the diagrams. If you connect the wrong wires in the wrong places, you can end up having a single coil Invader, since one of the coils might not be properly connected.

 

[-Gavin-]

The diagrams that came with the Invader (my Dimebucker hasn't arrived yet) are pretty.well, shit.
Thats why i want someone to explain it to me.

 

[the alumnus]

hmm, i can't say if your pickups will have the same configuration, but the standard humbuckinger pickup configuration is three wires. the ground is soldered to the volume pot. i can't remember where the positive and negative wires were soldered, but if you are keeping the same wiring as the previous pickup you should be able to unsolder the old one and attach the new to where the old one was. i think it was to the toggle switch, but i can't recall right now and i don't really want to unscrew my axe to find out. have you tried searching google? sometimes tech geeks put all that stuff online.

 

[bobvex]

Needled, i will try to scan some of that book for you that i showed you, then i can send you some of the wireing diagrams for 2 humbucker setup, or ill tlak to you later and guide you through it all.

 

[-Gavin-]

Cheers Bob, i yesterday bought that book but it has a "will ship in 8days" thing.

 

[bobvex]

good shit man, you wont be dissapointed

 

[-Gavin-]

Hope not.
I trust you though.

hey dude, why are you never on MSN anymore?

 

[Sunbane]

1) Take note of where the existing pickup wires go. Make a drawing of the electronics that show exactly which wires go where. This will be useful when you put the new pickups in, and also if you ever plan to sell the guitar and put the original pickups back.

2) With a soldering iron, loosen up the solder joints where the pickup wires are attached and pull them off (they're usually soldered to either the pickup selctor or a volume pot). A good soldering iron should be at least 25W. The cheap 15W ones are too weak IMO.

3) Try to figure out how the new pickups should be wired in. The good news is that both Duncan Designed (which should be in your Rhoads) and the Seymour Duncans are four-conductor pickups, so they should be wired in the same manner. The bad news is that the color coding on the wires might be different (I'm not sure since I haven't used either of them).

4) Put the new pickups in, starting with the neck pickup. Guide the wires into the channels that lead them into the control cavity. You will probably get a lot of excess wire in the control cavity, but RESIST THE URGE TO CUT THE WIRES! A little extra wire length is not going to hurt, especially if you decide to swap the pickups out in the future.

5) Solder the leads to the right spots. This is the hardest part to do well. If you're new to soldering, chances are high you'll end up with bad solder joints that screw up the sound or that come loose after a while. If you know someone who knows how to solder, it may be a good idea to let him/her do the soldering part. If you decide to go ahead and do it yourself anyway, make sure you're in a well ventilated room and avoid breathing in the fumes.

'bane

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

YEah dude, it's not a big deal at all if you are just going to replace passive hums with passive hums, especially if you're not planning on wiring them differently, like coilt tapping them or something. First time I did this on my guitar I was very careful, and it took me maybe 15 minutes for both pickups, and I had almost no soldering experience(few electronics here and there). Just unsolder all the joints of the old pickups, pull em out, and then put in the new ones like this(Im guessing you got four conductors, if not, just go to same site and find the 2 conductor diagram)
http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/support/schematics/2hb_1vol_1tone_3way.html

Where it says red and white soldered together, just solder the ends of the red, and the white together, and then just put a lil bit of tape over it, and that worked for me. And grounding the green wire, you have to just solder it somewhere on the surface of your pot, and then the black one as you see goes where your other pickups were connected to the pot, and from there you're good to go man.

I don't think you needed to buy a book ofr just this one installation, if you're just doin one this simple, but it will probably be useful in the future if you want to be fixin guitars etc.

Hope that helped.

 

[inferior_devotee]

hope you figure it out man, i got my pickups installed at a local shop and they totally fucked it up my EMG ran fine but the factory neck pick up now kinda has volume swells or more like, crackling, i have no idea what it is but i cant believe i paid money for such a shitty job

 

[Sunbane]

hope you figure it out man, i got my pickups installed at a local shop and they totally fucked it up my EMG ran fine but the factory neck pick up now kinda has volume swells or more like, crackling, i have no idea what it is but i cant believe i paid money for such a shitty job

EMGs typically don't mate well with passive pickups. They require different pots and there is usually also a significant difference in output. But it is possible the shop screwed something up, just like you say.

I don't even trust a store with a typical setup job anymore. They will either set the strings high enough to fly a Cessna under them, or (if I explicitly state I want the action low) moderately low but with a sitar-like string buzz - and charge an arm and a leg for it. Seems many shop people haven't heard the word "truss rod wrench" before. -_-

'bane

 

[-Gavin-]

You cant really mix an Passive with an Active pickup bro. (at Inferior), thats why.