1990 Clapton Sig Strat -No Output

[ahiddentableau]

Great feedback, thank you everyone.

I need to learn how to signal trace this guitar. I am pretty handly and figure i can do it with some guidance/instruction. Plus, I need to buy a circuit tracer I guess.

1) Is there some basic guidance available on how to perform a signal trace on this guitar (or similar guitar)?
2) What is a relatively inexpensive circuit tracer that would be adequate for my needs?

There is a great tutorial for building a signal tracer on the madbean website that he did years ago.

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/tutorials/downloads/Making_a_Prototyping_Rig.pdf

The germane bit is on pages 6-15. There are also a couple of sites that sell PCB projects for testing rigs. I got mine from JMK pedals and can report that it works fine. I think Fuzzdog has one. PedalPCB has one too but I think it's rather elaborate. But you don't really need to go that far. You just need the barebones and any guitar amp, and the tutorial covers those bases.

 

[fenderchamp]

first thing I'd do is take the battery out, and see if acts the same or different. I'm not really familiar and haven't played one for probably 30 years. You could possibly make some deductions about what the issue is by turning the midboost circuit on and off as well.

When I work on wiring guitars and have issues I get a couple of alligator clips and attach them to a jack which I can plug into a little amp I have and then work my way back from the pickups, to the switch and then back through the pots. Once you start clipping in the jack and looking at everything in the guitar and look at a schematic, you kind of start to get a pretty good idea about what's going on, where the signal is traveling etc.

It always proves instructive to me, and I haven't lost the fight yet. I've always managed to figure out what's wrong and fix it.

Here's a schematic I found.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fender_Eric_Clapton_Stratocaster_TBX.jpg

Take the pickguard off and start clipping in, and I bet you can work through it.

Debug it, like would debug anything, isolate the problem and make deductions from there.

Good luck, and seriously prepare to have a little fun, learn a little bit, save a little money and feel good about yourself. I'm sure if you use that simple technique, a good bit of patience, and work methodically, and if you have and apply a small degree of horse-sense you can figure out what needs replaced or what wire is loose or whatever.

 

[fenderchamp]

JIC I was too abstract.

So the basic concept is if you plug that jack into an amp and you clip each of those clips onto a each wire of a strat pickup, you will hear that pickup through the amplifier. Take it from there, and you can figure out your guitar. You should have a soldering iron, and some solder and a few bits of wire and you should be prepared to possibly buy some new parts if something is broken. I never actually solder the clips to the jack, I just solder a couple of piece of wire to the jack and clip onto the wires.

This is an extremely effective way to debug wiring issues with guitars so, have at it.

 

[itstooloudMike]

Get a cheap volt-meter that will read the battery output (9v dc). Then use that to read the voltage from the battery to the preamp. Most likely you are not getting 9 volts to the preamp. This could be the battery itself, or one of the connections going to the preamp. Pay close attention to the output jack (1/4”), as this is also a switch to cut power from the battery to the preamp when no guitar cord is plugged in. Probably a broken connection somewhere, keeping the 9v power from reaching the preamp.