Help: Pickup Wiring (Vintage Dirty Fingers)

[rupe]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

 

[luxxtone]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

Well, the braiding goes to the back of the pot as a ground. The cloth wire goes to the lug on the pot. If it's a simple 2-conductor wiring like you mentioned, it will always be in series. If it sounds thin, you probably have a broken pickup with only one coil working?

 

[Greazygeo]

Check the ohms with a dmm and tell me what it reads.

 

[rupe]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

Well, the braiding goes to the back of the pot as a ground. The cloth wire goes to the lug on the pot. If it's a simple 2-conductor wiring like you mentioned, it will always be in series. If it sounds thin, you probably have a broken pickup with only one coil working?

Thats what I did. Do both leads get wired to the same lug or does one of them get taped off and not used?

 

[rupe]

Check the ohms with a dmm and tell me what it reads.

I can't find my meter anywhere I'll keeping looking a bit later.

 

[luxxtone]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

Well, the braiding goes to the back of the pot as a ground. The cloth wire goes to the lug on the pot. If it's a simple 2-conductor wiring like you mentioned, it will always be in series. If it sounds thin, you probably have a broken pickup with only one coil working?

Thats what I did. Do both leads get wired to the same lug or does one of them get taped off and not used?

I see, you have TWO wires coming out of the braiding. One is probably a coil tap, and the other is the hot. So solder only one to the pot lug and hit both coils with a screwdriver or something to make sure both are working. If not, then take it off and solder the other wire on and it should work. Then just tape off the coil tap wire and don't connect it to anything.

 

[rupe]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

Well, the braiding goes to the back of the pot as a ground. The cloth wire goes to the lug on the pot. If it's a simple 2-conductor wiring like you mentioned, it will always be in series. If it sounds thin, you probably have a broken pickup with only one coil working?

Thats what I did. Do both leads get wired to the same lug or does one of them get taped off and not used?

I see, you have TWO wires coming out of the braiding. One is probably a coil tap, and the other is the hot. So solder only one to the pot lug and hit both coils with a screwdriver or something to make sure both are working. If not, then take it off and solder the other wire on and it should work. Then just tape off the coil tap wire and don't connect it to anything.

Close...there are two separate leads, each of them a braided wire with a cloth covered core wire. In theory the same thing though...I'm going to unsolder one of the leads and see what happens.

Here's a pic...it appears as if each coil has it's own lead?

 

[luxxtone]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

Well, the braiding goes to the back of the pot as a ground. The cloth wire goes to the lug on the pot. If it's a simple 2-conductor wiring like you mentioned, it will always be in series. If it sounds thin, you probably have a broken pickup with only one coil working?

Thats what I did. Do both leads get wired to the same lug or does one of them get taped off and not used?

I see, you have TWO wires coming out of the braiding. One is probably a coil tap, and the other is the hot. So solder only one to the pot lug and hit both coils with a screwdriver or something to make sure both are working. If not, then take it off and solder the other wire on and it should work. Then just tape off the coil tap wire and don't connect it to anything.

Close...there are two separate leads, each of them a braided wire with a cloth covered core wire. In theory the same thing though...I'm going to unsolder one of the leads and see what happens.

Here's a pic...it appears as if each coil has it's own lead?

Wow, I've never seen that before? It seems like each coil has it's own hot and ground. If that's the case, both hots would need to go to the lug on the pot. Otherwise, you can try what I mentioned on the last post.

 

[Greazygeo]

I have an old Dirty Fingers humbucker that I put in my Les Paul Custom. I'm guessing I wired it in parallel as I'm getting a fairly strong yet thin sound from it...kinda like a beefy single coil. The pickup has two identical leads that consist of a braided metal sheilding on the outside with a cloth covered single wire in the middle.

Anybody know how these should be wired up? Thanks!

Well, the braiding goes to the back of the pot as a ground. The cloth wire goes to the lug on the pot. If it's a simple 2-conductor wiring like you mentioned, it will always be in series. If it sounds thin, you probably have a broken pickup with only one coil working?

Thats what I did. Do both leads get wired to the same lug or does one of them get taped off and not used?

I see, you have TWO wires coming out of the braiding. One is probably a coil tap, and the other is the hot. So solder only one to the pot lug and hit both coils with a screwdriver or something to make sure both are working. If not, then take it off and solder the other wire on and it should work. Then just tape off the coil tap wire and don't connect it to anything.

Close...there are two separate leads, each of them a braided wire with a cloth covered core wire. In theory the same thing though...I'm going to unsolder one of the leads and see what happens.

Here's a pic...it appears as if each coil has it's own lead?

What did these pickups come out of? Recording or the weird Gibson Sonex model maybe? Must have had a switch going to them of some sort....the multi meter would make quick work of this.

 

[rupe]

It came out of an oddball Les Paul from the early 80's. Steve Clark played one in Def Leppard...an XPL maybe? It did have a factory coil tap toggle.

 

[Greazygeo]

It came out of an oddball Les Paul from the early 80's. Steve Clark played one in Def Leppard...an XPL maybe? It did have a factory coil tap toggle.

kinda looked like the stock Sonex pickup that had the huge circuit board in it. Built in compressor and active eq and three mini toggles. They were out about the same time. Each lead should read somewhere in the 5k-8k range if they are just a wire for each coil.

 

[rupe]

Mystery solved! Found the MM...one lead measured about 15k and the other about 7.5k. I taped off the 7.5k lead, soldered the 15k to the pot, and bingo, we have liftoff. Sounds great...not as gainy as I was expecting which is a good thing (I was trying this out on recommendation). I was worried it would be in X2N/Invader territory but it's more like a fatter sounding old JB. Running into the 1959RR channel 1 on 6.5 I had a huge tone and screaming harmonics with a super tight bottom end...nice! This may be a keeper.

Thanks for all the help!!!