Help with mounting a pickup on my resonator

[Buffalo_Bill]

To get rid of the hum, you have to shield the pots and jack as best you can. I put aluminum foil on the body side, under the top and down the outer side of the soundwell facing the pots. None into the actual soundwell or below the cone. That shields the electronics on three and a half sides plus the cover plate, and is enough to keep mine quiet. However, I would put electrical tape over all the positive terminals to keep them from touching the shielding. I'm going to open mine up again to do that. I'm really happy the way mine turned out, I don't think any manufacturer sells a hollow body resonator with a humbucker, but it won't be long.

[leftyguitarman]

This kind of hum isn't from lack of shielding. This is a really loud hum. It sounds like it's not grounded somewhere, but it's wired up right.

[birddog]

This kind of hum isn't from lack of shielding. This is a really loud hum. It sounds like it's not grounded somewhere, but it's wired up right.

Sounds familiar Lefty.
Check and recheck. I was reasonably shure mine were all wired up correctly, took my time, step by step.
Had hum in both my 000 I put a Fishman unit in last summer and more recently my Tele.
Correction for both was 2 crossed wires, hot and ground reversed took care of both cases.

Didn't make me feel very good, had to pull everything apart in both cases. Good thing is things like this didn't destroy something and cost me more money.
Bad thing is I felt like a dog without his boys
Let me know how this works out as I'm curious at looking at these options myself, may want to electrify my Johnson.

Wally

[Buffalo_Bill]

This kind of hum isn't from lack of shielding. This is a really loud hum. It sounds like it's not grounded somewhere, but it's wired up right.

Well, you know if that were true, it would work. I think the ground and pos are backwards somewhere's, or it could be the pos is touching the ground at some point. I bet it sounds like when you touch the tip of the plug to the outer jack.
Bill

[leftyguitarman]

Well, you know if that were true, it would work. I think the ground and pos are backwards somewhere's, or it could be the pos is touching the ground at some point. I bet it sounds like when you touch the tip of the plug to the outer jack.
Bill

Good point. It is wired up exactly how the wiring diagram says it should be. Like I said before, it worked fine when I had it all wired up outside of the guitar. As soon as I mounted the pickup to the coverplate and dropped it in the guitar, thats when the noise problem arose. It does sound just like touching the end of the cable to the output jack.

One thing I did notice was that one of the screws holding the pickup on the coverplate is touching the side of the pickup. The pickup is also touching the coverplate in one spot. Is this causing it short out?

[Buffalo_Bill]

It worked outside so, it's a pos touching a ground. If it is that screw, than the pickup cover is positive, it would hum when a ground (including the strings) touch it and that would mean your wiring is reversed someplace.
Try taping over all exposed positive, eliminate all chances of a short. You have reversed a connection or a short someplace, and you've got to track it down. If you have a multimeter you can check all your wiring as you go along.

[michaelm]

Some good suggestions here.

At the risk of offending you by asking the obvious, are the strings grounded?

Good luck, Lefty. I'm betting that this could turn out to be real simple once it's been scoped.

[leftyguitarman]

The strings are grounded, I think. The hum does not go away when I touch the strings, tailpiece or tuners. The coverplate pops when I touch it, so it's gotta be the screw touching the pickup and coverplate. I used a multimeter to check all of my connections and they all work as they should. I took the pickup off the coverplate and plugged it in. The only hum now is the 60 cycle hum from the pickup. So it's got to be the fact that the screw is touching the metal cover of the pickup.

[Buffalo_Bill]

I hope you've already licked this bummer, however if not it's got to be because the wiring is reverse. I suggest you reverse the polarity of the jack connections, see what happens.
No screw grounding the pickup cover to the cover plate should have an effect because they should all be grounded, and the strings must be grounded to work.
Hope you solved it already Bro.

[birddog]

Bill
Thats exactly what was wrong with both of my situations.

Wally

[leftyguitarman]

I reversed the connections on the jack multiple times. Each time it only made the hum worse.

I thought about running a ground wire to the tailpiece from the back of the pot, but I'm not sure if that would solve anything. I'll give it a shot after I finish up my stuff for the day.

[ricochet]

Tried reversing the pickup leads?

[leftyguitarman]

Tried reversing the pickup leads?

I did that as well and it didn't make the hum go away.

My Agile is in the shop right now getting set up with 11's in open D tuning, so when I go pick it up I'll take my reso with me and have my guitar tech look at it. He'll figure it out in less than a minute, I'm sure.

[ricochet]

Good idea.

[Buffalo_Bill]

Tried reversing the pickup leads?

I did that as well and it didn't make the hum go away.

My Agile is in the shop right now getting set up with 11's in open D tuning, so when I go pick it up I'll take my reso with me and have my guitar tech look at it. He'll figure it out in less than a minute, I'm sure.

I'm so glad harakiri has become passe.