Question about bridge pickup / grounding cable

[colorscape44]

Hi, I was recently trying to replace my bridge (without any modifications to electronics), and after install, I realized that I may have incorrectly resetup the bridge pickup. I was not trying to make any electronics changes. However, the bridge pickup is not outputting sound.

In the attached photos, you'll see the end of a black cable, along with a magnetic washer. I've tried using these in a few different locations, but no dice. As you can probably gather by now, I'm pretty new to the guitar mod world.

My question for the forum - do you know what I should be doing with the end of the black cable + the washer? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

[JohnnyCrash]

I’m not sure why a washer is in there, but you don’t need it.

The ground terminal, however, needs to be in contact with the bridge plate. Perhaps the previous installer threaded the terminal through one of the bridge mounting screws before bridge installation?

 

[colorscape44]

I’m not sure why a washer is in there, but you don’t need it.

The ground terminal, however, needs to be in contact with the bridge plate. Perhaps the previous installer threaded the terminal through one of the bridge mounting screws before bridge installation?

Thanks so much! So the ground terminal, which is the circular silver part at the end of the black cable, needs to be touching some part of the bronze-colored plate under the bride pickup? That’s it, really?

 

[Steve Holt]

Thanks so much! So the ground terminal, which is the circular silver part at the end of the black cable, needs to be touching some part of the bronze-colored plate under the bride pickup? That’s it, really?

Is that wire terminal (the circular thing) at the end of the black wire coming off the pickup? Or is it's own wire?

You need that black wire to connect to the ground of the circuit. There are a lot of ways to do that.

Usually the black wire on each pickup will be grounded to the back of the volume pot and then the volume pot will be connected to the ground of the output jack.

Because your pickup has that solder connection going from the black wire to the copper plate the plate will be grounded if you connect that black wire to the back of your volume pot. But if that ring terminal is the end of your black wire and you only connect it to the screw on the pickup, then it won't be grounded unless you run a separate wire from ground to either your bridge or that copper plate. Otherwise your pickup won't work.

Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Tuxedo Poly]

That looks like a Player bridge pickup which is grounded like this.
The washer is part of the assembly, contrary to comment above

This shows the ground on a different pickup fixing screw to the above but shows the idea more clearly.

 

[sjtalon]

>needs to be touching some part of the bronze-colored plate under the bride pickup<

No, that bare (called a jumper wire) wire that is soldered to the brass plate, goes to a solder point that has the negative (ground) coil wire on it, so that's all set.

So they kill two birds with one stone you could say, getting all that grounded. With the black wire going on a back of a pot.

Texido has got it. Unlike most all bridge pups with a base plate, the screws DO NOT thread into the baseplate, so the bridge needs its OWN ground connection, hence the eye terminal (circular silver part) and washer.

Guess you could call that killing bird three.

First time I've seen the washer trick though. My guess is to add better contact with the surface of the bridge plate by more pressure from the tubing.............so it's like a spacer for the eye terminal.

If a person runs their bridge pup low, there may not be sufficient pressure there for the eye terminal contact point w/o da washer.

 

[JohnnyCrash]

The basic idea is that you need one ground wire that makes contact with you — via your hands touching the strings — so you need your bridge to supply that (you touch the strings, the strings touch the bridge, voila!).

This ground wire needs to then distribute a connection to ground for the volume/tone/output circuit.

Whether it’s a bridge mounting screw (a wood screw) or the pickup mounting screw (as in Tuxedo Poly’s post), it doesn’t matter.

This ground wire from the bridge then feeds into the control cavity. From there it is usually soldered to the jack ground lug as well as the back of a volume and tone pots (i.e., jumpered to each component needing a ground connection).

Each pickup has a “hot” and a ground connection (unless you’re playing with rerouting ground wires for things like phase switches or both pickups in-series mods). The hot wires usually go to the switch (which then relays output to the volume/tone and output jack), the ground wires are often simply soldered to the back of pots (which share a ground connection via the ground wire).

 

[colorscape44]

That looks like a Player bridge pickup which is grounded like this.
The washer is part of the assembly, contrary to comment above
View attachment 1032892

This shows the ground on a different pickup fixing screw to the above but shows the idea more clearly.
View attachment 1032893

Thank you to everyone who has responded, this has all been so helpful. I'm new to this forum, and I'm definitely already learning a lot.

Where I'm at now - I tried replicating what I saw in Tuxedo Poly's image, and you can see the results attached. I am still not getting any sound though, so do let me know if anything is clearly incorrect. I've attached the ground and washer to a pickup mounting screw. From top to bottom, it's screw head, washer, ground, rubber tube.

I'd love to keep leveraging the awesome knowledge on this forum, but if I'm in way over my head at this point, I'm happy to take this to a tech, lol. Thanks again, everyone. Any further guidance is much appreciated!

Edit: PS - this is a player series tele, you are correct Tuxedo. Thanks.

 

[JohnnyCrash]

Can you take the control plate off and take some photos of the pots and switch wiring?

This should be an easy fix. I’d hate to see you take it to someone and pay for something that is do-able.

 

[Steve-0-]

Looks to me in the first photo that the actual wire link from the coil, across the baseplate to the yellow hookup wire has snapped near the coil - you can see it is loose. If you can find the broken end on the coil, you may be able to unwind it 1 turn and remake the connection.

Steve

 

[Steve Holt]

Looks to me in the first photo that the actual wire link from the coil, across the baseplate to the yellow hookup wire has snapped near the coil - you can see it is loose. If you can find the broken end on the coil, you may be able to unwind it 1 turn and remake the connection.

Steve

That's a good catch.it does look like that wire might have broken. If that's the case it is fixable if that's the end of the coil. But depending on how badly you want to fix it and what your skill level is (also what the pickup is worth) it may be better just to cut your losses and get a new pickup. That wire is fine and can be tough to deal with.

You'll have to carefully sand the coating off the wire as well before you tie it onto the eyelet.