Long-Awaited Review: THE JAGUAR X!!!

[Stereordinary]

Aw man, I need help. I just completely rewired it different based off what I could gather looking at that pic, and I'm getting the exact same results.

[Stereordinary]

So here's what I've got right now, maybe somebody can help me correct it.



I would've just taken a picture, but my camera is out of commission. The gray star looking things represent points at which I've soldered the ground wires to the switch. The grounding makes contact with the depressed lugs on the switches and the switch casings themselves. I wonder if maybe I need to take the depressed lugs out of the equation? Should the ground only make contact with the switch casing? I guess I could go out to Radio Shack and get some of those solder lug things that you screw down between the switch and the plate, and solder to that. I'm stumped. I thought I had this, so I feel all crappy.

[antisymmetric]

I'm no wiring expert, but I'd think that those central lugs all need to be wired together, rather than to the hot side of the next pickup. Looks like maybe some sort of series switching on the old guitar??? A different setup to yours, with the pickups wired to the pots first, before the switches. I'm sure you'll get plenty of advice on this from knowledgeable forum members. Very cool project, can't wait to see it!

[Stereordinary]

Reading your post made me realize what is wrong with how I have it right now. The reason the first switch in the sequence turns off all the pickups is simply that: it's the first switch in the sequence. Sending the signal input into it to ground (switching it off) inadvertently puts the grounding in the whole circuit. So what I need is to make it so that the signal sequence does not switch off by running to ground, but rather by simply becoming removed from the circuit.

I has idea.... brb.

[Stereordinary]

Okay, I think I'm making progress, but it's still not there. I wired the middle lugs on all the switches in a straight line, and removed the ground from the switches. All the grounding is now just soldered together and then soldered to the brass shielding plate. I hope it's not just a stupid thing a bad solder joint here. But what's happening now is every other switch is turning them all off or on. It could be that they are turning only individual pickups on, but these things are so microphonic its a bit hard to tell.

[mongoose]

Sorry for the major headache, bro. But just think of the feeling of accomplishment you'll have once it's finished (trying to be positive here). Plus, in your chosen profession, this sort of thing is bound to come up in the future.

We're all pulling for you!

[Stereordinary]

You got it Steve. I know I'll get it eventually and I'm already learning in the process. That counts for a lot.

[antisymmetric]

I don't have a lot of understanding of this stuff, but what you've done with the switches sounds right to me. Is the wire from the centre lugs connected to the pots yet? I'm asking because it can matter how it's connected to them. I wired a build of mine that had 2 volume pots so that either pot turned both pickups down, and found that by swapping the wires on the centre and hot lugs each pot worked for each pickup, but neither would cut the volume completely. So I swapped one problem for another- still haven't worked it out, but I do have some ideas when the guitar is assembled again. It may be an idea for you to bypass the pots and connect straight to the output jack, and see if the problem goes away, and if it does, revise the way the pots are wired in. Or, if you have an ohmmeter, use that to test the switches as you turn things on & off- that would at least eliminate the possibly that microphonic components are confusing your results. I was hoping you'd have had more members throwing advice in, there seems to be a few electronics guys around!

[Stereordinary]

Thanks for the suggestion antisymmetric. I just tried it out and the results are the same. I hunted down a Bass VI wiring diagram, since I think the switching is similar. I am baffled, because what I've done matches the VI wiring almost exactly. The only difference is that the VI has the fourth switch there for the high-pass filter, whereas my fourth switch is just for the fourth pickup. I can see no reason why this doesn't work. One thing I know for sure is that the pickups are very microphonic. Tapping the pickguard can be heard through the amp. I wonder if maybe the two ground leads need to be grounded in two different places, but it doesn't look to be that way on the pic that Steve posted of the original Teisco guard. For that matter, how the hell would I make two isolated grounding points? I mean, I could do one to a brass plate, and the other to the bridge thimbles, or something, but wouldn't both of them just have to go to ground no the output jack eventually anyway?

[monkoustic]

i used to have a jag that had been modified to have three more strings. it had filled holes in the headstock. apparently in the 1970's there were a group of people converting jags to semi-12 string guitars and painting them a kind of purple mist color... weird but true!

[mongoose]

i used to have a jag that had been modified to have three more strings. it had filled holes in the headstock. apparently in the 1970's there were a group of people converting jags to semi-12 string guitars and painting them a kind of purple mist color... weird but true!

Got any pics of these "cult converted" 9-string jags? I know I'd like to see some!

[noisepunk]

Hey Paul, I have an old Norma with two pickups and one switch per; I figured you could simply follow the wiring and just double the pickups, you would only have to figure out what leads do what by wiring one of the pickup to a jack or something, because mine only has the standard two (hot + ground).

I whipped this up in illustrator:

The colors don't mean much, they're just to differentiated between pathways, on the pickups red is hot yellow is ground.

Hope this helps, if even just a little; I'm guessing that if you just doubled the part with the pickups it would work out fine, and just keep the neck in the diagram the same as the neck in real life since it's wired slightly different.

[Stereordinary]

I appreciate your help. But man, that's exactly how this thing is already wired up. Even excluding the vol/tone/jack area. As asymmetric suggested, I went straight from the lead and ground coming off the switch array and went direct to a jack. Still had the same problem.

I think it's the switches. Either they are internally different than what we thought we had, or I fried them.

We actually might be doing something completely different with this anyways, so we'll see. Not so much because the wiring is a PITA, but because Steve's brain is cooking. Literally, I mean I saw pictures of the skillet. Fucker uses some high-grade coconut oil and shit.

[mongoose]

Fucker uses some high-grade coconut oil and shit.

I ALWAYS fry my shit in coconut oil. More heart-healthy than peanut oil, and the shit is usually nutty enough anyway!

[Stereordinary]

You know that's the secret ingredient of movie theater popcorn. I make popcorn on my stovetop with coconut oil, butter and plain old popcorn kernels. That shit is the bomb.