Pickup swap checklist

offender · Post by **offender** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 5:38 am

I managed to get a cheap pickup off Ebay thats probably better than the stock Ibanez pickups in my SA160 (got it for Â£10.50 delivered which is pretty sweet, its a Jackson CVR2 humbucker).

It seems to line up with the height-adjustment screws on the existing pickup, the main question is to make sure that I have the right idea about which wires to solder.

It looks pretty straightforward, red to red, white to white, black/open wire to black/open wire & the green one left over must be for coil-tapping so I just leave that unsoldered?

Also as for the soldering, various sites say to use "rosin" core solder, I have seen a lot of kits with "resin" core, is there a difference??? I'm going to try & get a basic 30W kit off ebay or at a store.

This guide here seems pretty good: http://www.gibson.com/Gear_News.aspx?Al ... the%20Pace

The pics attached show the open cavity for the SA160, the new pickup and part of the SA160 wiring guide PDF I got from the Ibanez site with the numbers corresponding to what should be soldered to what....

Anything that I have missed??

ash · Post by **ash** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:18 pm

Sorry to break it to you, but the CVR2 is unlikely to be much better than the Ibanez pickup. Its just another generic Korean OEM unit for their mid-range Jacksons. With any luck it will be higher output though.

On your Ibanez pickup, white is hot and red is the tap (the joint between the two coils).

Black/sheild is obviously the ground in its factory application (but not neccesarily here), and it would appear that green is one of the tap pair. You can't assume the colours will match as there is no standard. SD, KA and DiMarzio each use different combinations of the same colours for example.

Firstly, use a multimeter to find which wire belongs to the black wire's coil. It will be one half of the tap.

One of the other two wil be the other half and the remaining one will be the hot output.

Once you know those things you can guess which is which and listen to the sound to decide if its right You may have to swap the unknown wires if its out of phase and you may have to swap the hot/ground if its out of phase with the middle pickup.

ash · Post by **ash** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:36 pm

And yes, resin/rosin core is the same thing.

TMG 03 · Post by **TMG 03** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:37 pm

there is a reason they are 10 pounds

offender · Post by **offender** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 9:32 pm

ash wrote:Sorry to break it to you, but the CVR2 is unlikely to be much better than the Ibanez pickup. Its just another generic Korean OEM unit for their mid-range Jacksons. With any luck it will be higher output though.

Yeah its really a case of wanting to do a swap so as to get a feel for whats involved. I'm not particularly looking to make this guitar sound better, if it does go well I'd prefer to spend the money on a Classic 57 or something for the SG & know that I have the experience to swap it out. The Duncans & Dimarzio pickups on ebay always seem to go for at least Â£30, even second hand which is probably a tad expensive for trial & error

Didn't realise I'd need a multimeter though, I'll have to look at whats available, what a pain that they're not standardised!

offender · Post by **offender** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 9:40 pm

ash wrote:Black/sheild is obviously the ground in its factory application (but not neccesarily here), and it would appear that green is one of the tap pair. You can't assume the colours will match as there is no standard. SD, KA and DiMarzio each use different combinations of the same colours for example.

You're talking about the CVR2 pickup here? Does that mean that the green one will have to be used???

ash wrote: Firstly, use a multimeter to find which wire belongs to the black wire's coil. It will be one half of the tap.

Not sure I get what you mean here? What do I touch the multimeter to in order to find this out?

One thing, the pickup came with the white & red wires wound together, I just unwound them thinking the seller had done that but maybe they are meant to be that way???

ash wrote: One of the other two wil be the other half and the remaining one will be the hot output.

Once you know those things you can guess which is which and listen to the sound to decide if its right You may have to swap the unknown wires if its out of phase and you may have to swap the hot/ground if its out of phase with the middle pickup.

Hmm looks more complex than I thought...maybe I should have got an Ibanez pickup

ash · Post by **ash** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:31 pm

If white and red were wound together, then they are probably the tap pair. On the Ibanez pu they are joined inside and come out via the red wire.

The easiest thing to do will be to rejoin the red/white and consider them equivalent to the Ibanez red wire. Green to hot, black to earth.

if it sounds out of phase or noisy in positions 1 or 2 you'll need to do some swapping.

Kev77 · Post by **Kev77** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:07 pm

Hey while were talking pick ups, anyone know anything about the Ye old Ibanez 'super 70's"?.
They look like soap bar humbuckers.
The box just says super 70's on the outside.,., Im not a huge ibanez knowitall.,.,help?

Kev77 · Post by **Kev77** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:28 pm

hold up, there more like P90's , black covers and long rectangular magnets.,. a Super 70 P-90 Soap Bar?

offender · Post by **offender** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 5:18 am

Well I couldn't find any well priced kits today at the stores so I'll get one off ebay so a few more days grace.

[edit]

I found this site which is even better than the two below!

http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/cate ... olorcodes/

This seems to say what you said before with the pictures it has, red and white go together, green is hot (presumably like the ibanez white wire) and the black + bare wire go together to ground.

[end edit]

I found these two other sites but I think they confuse the issue

http://www.guitar-repairs.co.uk/guitar_ ... _codes.htm

http://www.hotrodguitars.com/WireCode.htm

offender · Post by **offender** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:54 am

I finally got around to swapping this pickup & it all went fairly well (except for a quick trip to the hardware store to get some new screws as the ones from the ibanez pickup didn't quite fit (thread kept slipping).

Its all in & sounds fine (so presumably not out of phase) & works in both positions. The soldering went fairly well, though it was a bit hard initially to solder the black/shield wire to the big glob of existing solder where everything else seemed to be grounded to.

It doesn't sound a whole lot different, a bit better on the cleans & overall more output. Its good to know what to expect with this kind of thing, Now I can see whether a classic 57 for the SG is in order