Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

So I was finally able to get my new humbucking pickup working...or maybe not, but I'll get to that in a minute I took a bunch of pictures and figured I'd post some.

I got everything back together, but I think my humbucker is now a single coil pickup. I put in the push/pull in order to be able to switch from single to humbucking, but the clear and black wires were connected to ground even when just hanging in the air. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with the pickup or what. I checked and didn't see any shielding missing on the parts that I could see, so right now, my push/pull switch does nothing to the sound. If I was more confident in my abilities (especially after this weekend ) I might try to take the pickup apart and see what it is doing. Maybe in the future I'll buy another pickup and put in it, but I'm leaving it alone for now because I get sound!!

One more picture...

Wow! Lots of work you did, here! But, I see the neck pickup is still in the 1" position.

Can you rewire the HB-1 to stock just to check it is working correctly? As a single coil I would think you'd hear the typical buzz from one, is this what you hear from the HB-1 now?

I don't hear any real buzz, but I don't get much buzz from my other pickup either. I guess the part that made me suspect something before I plugged it in was that the two wires that are joined together and separated for the humucker sound (the black and clear) went to ground anytime the pickup was grounded. My push/pull switch is supposed to mimic the original wiring when pulled since the two lugs are separated, but they still go to ground. So, in either push/pull configuration, the outside coils are going to ground (I checked the lugs and they are separated from each other when the switch is pulled and the two wires aren't connected to them). By that point in the process, I just wanted to be done and figure I'll deal with it later

Here is the stock wiring: http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/19521-HB1%20Wiring.pdf
The black and clear wires should be tied together for stock wiring. If you want single South coil operation the switch needs to close a circuit between the black/clear connection to the blue/sheild (-) connection. If you want single North coil operation the switch needs to close a circuit between the black/clear connection to the red (+) wire.

The problem is that the black and clear always go to ground, even when they weren't connected to anything but themselves, so it acts like a north coil (is it north coil if the red is connected to the south coil?) split...I think. I could be wrong about these things with my excellent wiring expertise

nukebass wrote:The problem is that the black and clear always go to ground, even when they weren't connected to anything but themselves, so it acts like a north coil (is it north coil if the red is connected to the south coil?) split...I think. I could be wrong about these things with my excellent wiring expertise

Make sure the switch is open when making this measurement.

Dude, your cat looks just like my Ollie! Other than a bit chunkier and has a full-length tail (Ollie was run over when he was two weeks old and lost most of it, that's how I got him). He also likes to sleep in my cases.

Before I install an HB-1 I always go through the various permutations of the leads + shield to figure out what's series, what's parallel, and what's tapped... if you get no further try unsoldering it, doing this, and establish what gives you what you want. For series, you should get the highest value. For parallel, it should be series divided by 4. If it's series over 2, you've got a coil tap.

aceonbass wrote:What are you using for a push-pull pot? I'm not familiar with that configuration. I've done a lot of HB1 coil tap conversions and I can tell you tht the black and clear always need to be connected. In humbucking mode they are NOT grounded. In coil tap mode they are grounded. To get the most out of the sound of an HB1 you should be using 500K pots for volume and tone and a .022uF tone cap.

Right now I am using the current push/pull pot that RIC uses in their 4003 configuration. What I ordered was labeled as a 500K with the stack of lugs for the push/pull, but turned out to be a 330K with the two lugs for the push pull setting (I measured it to be 470 kOhm or something, so it really isn't too far off of 500k). Right now, I have the black/clear wires connected to one lug of the push/pull and the other lug connected to the ground on the pot. The blue and ground wires are also grounded together and the red wire is connected to the pickup switch. My idea was that in the "push" position of the switch the black/clear would be grounded and in the "pull" position they would be isolated. Both positions gave me a ground so I disconnected the black/clear and did a continuity check with them to ground. Isolated they went to ground. I initially thought I had grounded my lug again like I did on the volume pot, but this turned out not to be the case.

Before I installed the pickup, I measured around 7 or 8 kOhm (I don't remember exactly what the number was) each when measuring the red wire to ground and the blue wire to ground. I didn't think to do the red wire to grounded blue wire. I also didn't think to check what the resistance should be. These are good lessons to learn!

Thinking about it now, I should have taken the extra minute to pull the black and clear wires apart to see which one was going to ground. That's something simple I can do in the next couple of weeks. I might have nicked a wire when I was cutting the outer wrap to get to the wires. Then I can check the combinations of the wires, too. I do have some four conductor wire, so if it is a nicked wire, I could cut the wire back to that point and add new wire.

Yeah, my cat is a bit on the "plus" side

aceonbass wrote:HB1's are 15K pickups, so tapped it would be about 7.5K (which is what I get on mine). When I strip the very fine wires on pickup leads for soldering, I barely nick the wire with an X-acto, then pull off the shielding with my thumbnail. Sounds like you'v wired it correctly though.

I used a utility knife to start cutting through the outer (grey) cover and peeled it back to get to the wires. I think I'll troubleshoot the two suspect wires this weekend and report back. I'm really hoping it's something simple and I don't have to try to put new wires on the pickup.

Thanks for the advice so far!

I took it back apart today and the black wire is the one going to ground. I didn't see any nicks or anything in the wire so I took the pickup back out and wound up disconnecting the black wire from the pickup. The #1 spot on the plate (the black wire connection) is grounded to the body of the pickup so it is internal. Does anybody know how to take one of these apart? I was hoping to be able to get a look at the internals and see if it was something I could fix. At this point, am I pretty much stuck buying a new pickup if I want the humbucker?