[Zepp88]

Originally Posted by dpm

I see your wiring madness and raise you this...

What the hell is that ribbon cable and PCB for?

Also, James what values are those pots? I might flex some wiring muscle soon Switch -> 1meg volume pot -> jack ->pwn.

[dpm]

The most visible PCB is the first Hexpander synth board that sits on the Ghost piezo board. There's another Hexpander board in the little plastic bag there. The large ribbon cables go to the 2 13-pin hex outputs, the smaller ones to the piezo pickups. All those coloured individual cables are connected to the piezo and synth controls, output, battery etc. The synth controls are paralleled to the second synth board and the piezo from that board connected in parallel with the piezo on the first board, thus giving 9 strings of piezo and magnetic from one output. There's also a magnetic pickup switch, volume and tone in there, of course. /hijack

[7 Dying Trees]

Originally Posted by dpm

Re. circuit boards, it wouldn't achieve much in James' guitar. Hard to see clearly but it looks like he needs a beefier soldering iron for the earth connections to the pots though.

Dunno, soldering iron isn't too bad at 70w, just a bit of a pain to get the flux to take on the push pulls! Next one up is 125w, although I am using a butane powered one

P.S: It's not my guitar either

[7 Dying Trees]

Originally Posted by dpm

I see your wiring madness and raise you this...

You win, i concede defeat!

[7 Dying Trees]

Originally Posted by Leon

so how does the out-of-phase sound compared to a full series connection? or a parallel one?

Well, the main thing with out of phase it that it sucks away the bassiness. It's kind of a nasally type sound, buty not in a bad way. It's great for cleans! One of the simplest things you can do as well. Kind of think of two buckers in parrallell, but with a bass cut on it so it sparkles a lot more and chimes.

It's nice, this is the 2nd or 3rd time i've wired it. It's also ridiculously simple to wire.

[7 Dying Trees]

Originally Posted by cadenhead

Just a question, has anyone ever tried to put a PCB in there rather than having all those wires? Seems to me that it might clean up some of the "mess". Though, there will still be a few wires, just not as many.

I've been thinking about that for one of my guitars.

Would it be worth experimenting on?

PCB wouldn't help unless you had a few components. As it is, this is all wiring from switches to the selector switch, and in between the plates of the selector switch to achieve some of the combinations. I also had the brief of not stripping all the lead from the mystery toppings, and used wire that was a bit too thick to be honest, but it all worked out and all fits! I'm just pleased they weren't actives as there's no way a battery would fit in there!

[dpm]

Originally Posted by 7 Dying Trees

Dunno, soldering iron isn't too bad at 70w, just a bit of a pain to get the flux to take on the push pulls! Next one up is 125w, although I am using a butane powered one

P.S: It's not my guitar either

Duh, I'm a dumbass and was looking at the vol pot on the before pic

70w is more than enough in electric irons, I'm not sure how equivalent your butane thingy is. I use a temperature controlled station for fine work and a big 80w bastard for getting on and off the pots as quick as possible - it helps to have a big, instant concentration of heat in one spot so nothing melts inside. With those push/pulls, try grinding or filing the plating off the spot where you want to earth them. That plating hates solder. Tidy looking job btw

[7 Dying Trees]

Originally Posted by dpm

Duh, I'm a dumbass and was looking at the vol pot on the before pic

70w is more than enough in electric irons, I'm not sure how equivalent your butane thingy is. I use a temperature controlled station for fine work and a big 80w bastard for getting on and off the pots as quick as possible - it helps to have a big, instant concentration of heat in one spot so nothing melts inside. With those push/pulls, try grinding or filing the plating off the spot where you want to earth them. That plating hates solder. Tidy looking job btw

The butane one is awesome, it has got a control that increases/decreases the butane you burn (and hence temperature) although I'm still learning to use it, but it's a million times better than my old iron, plus it's got no cord(!).

It's an OK wiring job, not the neatest as it was a choice of tidy of all the cable runs with heatshrink, or actually know what the colour coding meant as i left a 3 day break in the middle, but it still came out ok.

I'm actually glad it all worked first time as I'd have hatewd to have had to desolder aqnd figure out what had gone wrong!

[ohio_eric]

Originally Posted by 7 Dying Trees

Well, the main thing with out of phase it that it sucks away the bassiness. It's kind of a nasally type sound, buty not in a bad way. It's great for cleans! One of the simplest things you can do as well. Kind of think of two buckers in parrallell, but with a bass cut on it so it sparkles a lot more and chimes.

It's nice, this is the 2nd or 3rd time i've wired it. It's also ridiculously simple to wire.

This fascinates me. I'm finding positions 2 and 4 on my Schecter a little redundant and I'm looking for options.

[7 Dying Trees]

Originally Posted by ohio_eric

This fascinates me. I'm finding positions 2 and 4 on my Schecter a little redundant and I'm looking for options.

It's nice, it actually does have a lot of clarity, and works well for leads as well, as you get the pickup blend, but without too much bassiness and thickness of running two humbuckers in parralell. Very sparkly single coil like tone, but with more character to it.

I'd try it out, it's not hard to do really!