No output (!).. Need some help here!

anoukane · Post by **anoukane** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 11:55 pm

After changing pickguards my bass suddenly have no output anymore. I think one or some of the wires have disconnected.
Here is a picture from the neck pickup.
See the solder stuff in the red circle. Should this be connected somewhere on the neck pickup?
Thanks.

anoukane · Post by **anoukane** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 2:01 am

Ok, I soldered that little wire inside the red circle down and the neck pickup works

Only the bridge pickup isn't working. When I touch the mounting ring of the bridge pickup it's starting to buzz and when I hit a string I can slightly hear tone. But when I get my finger off the mounting ring it stops buzzing and I don't hear any tone at all..
Does anyone have any idea what there could be wrong?

(apologies for my horrible English)

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:51 am

The ground wire (big outside wire) should be hooked to the case like you did with the one above or at least that's what the problem sounds like to me. The ground usually goes to a little ring under the screw like the above pickup.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:56 am

solder the loose wire to here ...

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:59 am

there may be other problems ... you may have wired the pickups into the pots wrong causing them to be out of phase ... in other words you may have the hot and the ground reversed ...

if you are going to wire up a ric bass first print out the schematics from the ric web site and try to have a second ric on hand that is wired correctly as a comparison ...

anoukane · Post by **anoukane** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:18 am

I did solder the loose wire in above picture. The neck pickup works now.
But the bridge pickup doesn't.
But it did work after i did the vintage tone mod. But it didn't work after changing pickguards.
For the Vintage tone mod I used the schematic of Joey.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:43 am

You must have pulled the ground wire off of the bridge pickup somewhere, most likely under the pickguard, check to see if it pulled off the knob where it is supposed to be soldiered. It is again the thick outside wire.

anoukane · Post by **anoukane** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:13 am

I've made a few pictures. As far as I know they aren't off. Ive coloured the gray wire which is coming of the bridge pickup purple.

rickfan60 · Post by **rickfan60** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:14 am

If I am not mistaken, that bass is currently on Ebay. I recognize the binding repair I did on the upper horn. There was once a hole there half the size of a pencil eraser.

anoukane · Post by **anoukane** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:22 am

That's right Ted. I already put it on Ebay before this happened. But I'm sure the problem with the bridge pickup will be solved before the auction ends. I do need the help of the people on this forum though. Maybe anyone sees something odd on the picture above?

rickfan60 · Post by **rickfan60** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:58 am

Check the jacks. We had a heck of a time getting the stereo jack to fit in the hole. The original was removed and lost by the person who owned it before Paul. I used a NOS RIC jack assembly from the 80's to replace it.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:15 am

ya the wreck-o-sound can frequently malfunction ... I usually rewire my 4001/4003 basses to have 2 mono outputs ...

anoukane · Post by **anoukane** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:32 am

What should I do with the jacks? Should I unscrew the output-plate and check for a lose wire?

I'm not really handy with electronic stuff

j_gary · Post by **j_gary** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:35 am

Jeff, you are killing me! LOL!

I kinda like the feature, but it has led me on a few adventures.

doctorwho · Post by **doctorwho** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:33 am

Philip, the way I remove the plate/plug assembly is to loosen the nuts on the two plugs (don't take the nut off), then unscrew the four plate mounting screws, and then carefully pull the plate off with a little wiggling to get the plugs to come out. Make sure not to force it; if it doesn't want to come out with only a little effort, then remove the nuts from the plugs, remove the plate, and then pull the plugs out one at a time to check for loose wires.