Danelectro U3 baritone wiring question FINISHED

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garyptaszek
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Danelectro U3 baritone wiring question FINISHED

Post by garyptaszek » Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:54 pm

Anyone out there got a U3 or a DC3 from the 90s?
I just bought a loaded body of reverb. The controls seem to be working fine, but I noticed this weird plain wire (coming from the pickups) soldered to a black grounding wire, grounding to the pot case... seems a little odd, especially as there’s no grounding wire going to the bridge. Did the previous owner get confused and solder the bridge ground to this pickup ground after it came loose? Or are both these wires supposed to be connected to the bridge screw?

Image35992A9D-E7A0-458C-A84E-6CCD7EA4423B by Gary Ptaszek, on Flickr

Anyone got one they can take a look at?
Last edited by garyptaszek on Sat Oct 15, 2022 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:16 pm

Did some more diving, and it would appear that all three pickups are daisy-chained together by this bare wire. Is this how they are stock? Or did someone go through the effort of doing this for seemingly no reason?

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:45 pm

Ok, so a previous owner decided to detach the grounding lug from the pickups, and daisy chain them all together with solid, not solid wire like I had assumed... :fp:
all fixed now. ;)

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Sun Jun 05, 2022 11:27 am

So I got this all wired up back to stock, but I'm still trying to work out a more useful circuit.
Also, the pickups are much lower output than I'm used to (standard low output Dano lipsticks compared to higher output 12k-15k pickups).
I've seen some higher output lipstick pickups out there from Kent Armstrong and GFS, but I'm torn between fitting a higher output bridge pickup, or putting 3 standard output lipstick pickups, with a RW/RP middle pickup to get a truer "humbucker" tone in the in between settings.
The blow switch is also useless unless you wanna just make the thing sound muddy and gross, maybe I could replace it with a blend pot to mix in the middle pickup with the bridge or neck pickup?

Anyone out there with any clue or opinion on my options hit me up.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by Nudger » Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:37 am

Anyone out there with any clue or opinion on my options hit me up.
[/quote]
Dont think dannos readily lend themselves to modding..
You could opt for a lipstick humbucker.
If youre confident with routing for pickup I say go for it ;)
Ive got a Dano guitarlin that I converted to sitar guitar.

I never liked the fiddly double knobs, Slapped standard pots in mine and a 4way rotary.
I got n - nb parallel - nb parallel out of phase - b
You could wire series in place of out of phase and have a pull pot tone for out of phase.
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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:39 am

Nudger wrote:
Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:37 am
Anyone out there with any clue or opinion on my options hit me up.
Dont think dannos readily lend themselves to modding..
You could opt for a lipstick humbucker.
If youre confident with routing for pickup I say go for it ;)
Ive got a Dano guitarlin that I converted to sitar guitar.

I never liked the fiddly double knobs, Slapped standard pots in mine and a 4way rotary.
I got n - nb parallel - nb parallel out of phase - b
You could wire series in place of out of phase and have a pull pot tone for out of phase.
Image
[/quote]

danos definitely lend themselves to modding. I've put P90s in them before which is always a win, and swapped the concentric pots out. But I wanna maybe stick with the lipsticks this time and maybe change up the wiring.

what 4-way switch did you use?

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by Nudger » Mon Jun 06, 2022 12:03 pm

[/quote]

danos definitely lend themselves to modding. I've put P90s in them before which is always a win, and swapped the concentric pots out. But I wanna maybe stick with the lipsticks this time and maybe change up the wiring.

what 4-way switch did you use?
[/quote]


From an amateur angle "my angle" they are harder work than fender types due to lack of control plate and clear/small pick guards.

If you are handy with a router though, the skys the limit..

Switch is alpha 3pole 4 way. Let me know if you need wireng diagrams

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:46 pm

I've swapped the bridge pickup out for a Kent Armstrong hot lipstick (7.7k) we'll see how that sounds at the next band rehearsal.
another thing I'm considering is some for of bass cut (like a jag) as most of the combinations of pickups are pretty dark.

I'm gonna see how it goes and then maybe look into rewiring the entire thing with a more simplified setup.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by Jonesie » Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:34 am

garyptaszek wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:46 pm
I've swapped the bridge pickup out for a Kent Armstrong hot lipstick (7.7k) we'll see how that sounds at the next band rehearsal.
another thing I'm considering is some for of bass cut (like a jag) as most of the combinations of pickups are pretty dark.

I'm gonna see how it goes and then maybe look into rewiring the entire thing with a more simplified setup.
If the pickups sound dark there might be something wrong... My Danos are bright as hell.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:15 pm

Jonesie wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:34 am
garyptaszek wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:46 pm
I've swapped the bridge pickup out for a Kent Armstrong hot lipstick (7.7k) we'll see how that sounds at the next band rehearsal.
another thing I'm considering is some for of bass cut (like a jag) as most of the combinations of pickups are pretty dark.

I'm gonna see how it goes and then maybe look into rewiring the entire thing with a more simplified setup.
If the pickups sound dark there might be something wrong... My Danos are bright as hell.
It's more the combinations of the pickups rather than the pickups individually. I guess because all the available combinations are in series.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by Jonesie » Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:22 pm

garyptaszek wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:15 pm
Jonesie wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:34 am
garyptaszek wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:46 pm
I've swapped the bridge pickup out for a Kent Armstrong hot lipstick (7.7k) we'll see how that sounds at the next band rehearsal.
another thing I'm considering is some for of bass cut (like a jag) as most of the combinations of pickups are pretty dark.

I'm gonna see how it goes and then maybe look into rewiring the entire thing with a more simplified setup.
If the pickups sound dark there might be something wrong... My Danos are bright as hell.
It's more the combinations of the pickups rather than the pickups individually. I guess because all the available combinations are in series.
Interesting. My middle (series) position on my danos are brighter than the neck pickup by itself.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:34 pm

Jonesie wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:22 pm
garyptaszek wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:15 pm
Jonesie wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:34 am


If the pickups sound dark there might be something wrong... My Danos are bright as hell.
It's more the combinations of the pickups rather than the pickups individually. I guess because all the available combinations are in series.
Interesting. My middle (series) position on my danos are brighter than the neck pickup by itself.
well yeah obviously it would be because its mixing the very bright bridge pickup with the neck pickup. however mixing the bridge and middle pickup, or neck and middle pickup in series increases the resistance making it sound darker.

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by JSett » Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:36 pm

The bridge and middle should be plenty bright...brighter than a usual Dano Bridge/neck combo I'd have thought
Silly Rabbit, don't you know scooped mids are for kids?

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Re: Danelectro U3 wiring question

Post by garyptaszek » Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:48 pm

johnnysomersett wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:36 pm
The bridge and middle should be plenty bright...brighter than a usual Dano Bridge/neck combo I'd have thought
ok so bare in mind the amount of extra wiring in the U3/DC3 schematic. Also bare in mind I'm changing my amp settings to compensate for the very bright bridge pickup, then switching to the other pickup combinations they sound dark in comparison.
does that clear up? this is also why I want to isolate the tone control to only work for the bridge pickup. That way I can roll that down instead of my amp, while leaving the middle and neck brighter.

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Re: Danelectro U3 Baritone modified

Post by garyptaszek » Sat Oct 15, 2022 12:46 am

Well, it's finished now.
Had a British pickup winder (toltec pickups) wind me some hot Nashville-esq pickups. The neck pickup is a kind of JM/P90 hybrid, magnet poles rather than bar magnets.
Looking forward to a band rehearsal to give it a proper run through.
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