Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hello--

Being handy with a solder iron, but not knowing much about installing a pickup, I tried to install an HB-1 pickup on my already modified '65 360 OS. There was already another humbucker on it (a Duncan) which I removed, and I hooked up the HB-1 to the same spots (one green wire, one black one) as the previous humbucker. Yet I get no sound. Why?

Let me word this differently: What do the four colored wires on the pickup stand for? (Blk, wht, red, green)

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
-KH

Nobody on this board knows what the four wires on an HB-1 pickup are for?

John Hall told me once ...I don't remember what they are .

With a meter you can figure it out fast .

Two wires go together ,one is hot the last is ground.

With a meter you will figure out that you have two coils .

I would suggest that you ask directly ..although I looked at the site and did not find the color coding...I did find some info that would be helpful.

On the John Kay signature guitar ,the schematic reads as follows
solder point one -hot
solder point two -ground/earth
solder point three- is connected to solder point 4four .This connects the coils.

As I have never seen the bottom of the Rick humbucking pickup ,I have no idea if these points are labeled this way .On the schematic there is no color coding at all .Sorry .

This post was originally made in the Late Model Humbuckers conversation on Tuesday, September 26, 2000 - 02:17 pm and is credited to John Hall.

Quote:On the back of the pickup is a small circuit board. Each of the two coils is terminated to small pads on the board, allowing you access to all four leads coming from the coil. Pads 1 & 2 cover the first coil, while pads 3 & 4 are for the second coil. The shield is kept separate and has a fifth pad area for connection. We connect these up with 4 conductor plus shield cable, and make the standard humbucking connection at the tail end of the leads, for everyone's convenience.

The beauty of this system is that since all leads are available, unlike other humbuckers, you can design circuits which use phase-reversal, single coil splits, a single coil with center tap, and even active differential humbucking (like the John Kay Model), or plain old mechanical humbucking.

Thanks guys--and sorry to sound so flustered, I just couldn't believe no one here had messed with those pickups...and on top of that, I went to call Henry McGuinn (at RIC) for advice and they're closed for summer vacation!!!