Vintage T/Chopper T wiring help!

[kingflupps]

Hi guys,

I found a fantastic deal on GumTree the other day which was a Dimarzio Vintage "t" and Chopper T for £50 the pair. Obviously I snapped it up having always intended to upgrade the pickups on my beloved first guitar, a Squier Standard Tele. I have the two wiring diagrams from the Dimarzio website and followed the instructions but have ended up with neither pickup soldered to the switch. This can't be right can it?

I currently have the Vintage T's (neck) red wire soldered to the Voume Pot with the green and bare seperated and soldered to ground (tone pot which has a wire to the bridge plate). The black and white are soldered together and covered with tape. (this was done already.)

I have the exact same setup for the Chopper T (bridge)

When I took the other pickups out they were connected to the switch. Currently the only thing connected to the switch is a red wire from the volume pot going to the center of the switch. The only diagram I can find for a tele that sounds familiar is the "affinity" series diagram on the Squier website, this however has 500k pots and mine has 250k according to the stats on the website. I'm assuming that the hot connection is the volume pot. As you can tell I'm a newb at this but I have plenty of experience soldering.

I'm guessing that all I have to do is solder the red wire from each pickup to either end of the switch, like in the diagram below, instead of directly to the volume pot. I have included the diagram I'm using below. Just wanted to check with you guys first.

http://www.squierguitars.com/pdf/current/Tele/Affinity Tele- Service.pdf

Dimarzio Chopper T diagram - (link removed)

Dimarzio Vintage "T" diagram - (link removed)

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks guys.

p.s - any recommeded heights for such pups?

 

[Parma_TeleMon]

There are several ways to wire Dimarzios, depending on whether or not you want split coils, parallel or series, etc. The easiest way is to solder the red wires to the switch where your old pup "hot" leads went and everything else to ground ("earth", I believe you call it), usually on the back of the volume pot. That should oughta do ya.

 

[kingflupps]

Thanks Parma, I'll give it a go - what are the pro's and con's of split, parallel or series? Is the way I'm doing it series?

Also the neck pickups green and ground wire are not long enough to reach to the ground pot but they are long enough to reach to the end of the ground wire that goes from the pot to the bridge. Is it ok just to solder them to that? I assume it is due to their length.

 

[bigrigguitarman]

"Thanks Parma, I'll give it a go - what are the pro's and con's of split, parallel or series? Is the way I'm doing it series? Also the neck pickups green and ground wire are not long enough to reach to the ground pot but they are long enough to reach to the end of the ground wire that goes from the pot to the bridge. Is it ok just to solder them to that? I assume it is due to their length."

The RED is hot and goes to the switch the GREEN is ground. Solder the WHITE and BLACK together and tape them off unless you want to use them for split and parallel. A STACKED single coil cannot be split to the bottom coil it will sound bad.

You can add wires to the shorter ones with solder and tape if you need to. You can use 2 push pull pots or an on/on/on/ switch or a on/on switch alone (which will just give you parrallel). Hope this helps.
Here is a diagram that might help.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/just-pic...zio-humbucker-series-parallel-split-coil.html

 

[bigrigguitarman]

"Thanks Parma, I'll give it a go - what are the pro's and con's of split, parallel or series? Is the way I'm doing it series?"

Wired Parma's way would be split. With red to switch green to ground and black and white soldered and taped together (not soldered anywhere) you have series. With red and white to the switch and green and black grounded you have parallel. Wired to the switch this way you can only choose one way.

AS stated you can use a on/on/on/ and have series/split/ parallel all available.

Split can sound good, my VV hot T is actually a little louder and brighter split to the top coil. Depends on the pickup. Series and parallel are usually very usefull with parallel a little less output, brighter and still humbucking. Again, it kinda depends on the pickup.

BigRig

 

[Parma_TeleMon]

Oops, my bad. My presumption was that the pickups were left as they came from the factory with the black and white wires soldered together and taped. I apologize for any confusion.

 

[bigrigguitarman]

Parma TeleMon
No problem! I had to edit my posts about 4 times to get the bugs out. Probably still left a few LOL. I think we lost Kingflupps though.

By the way I am in Cleveland. Small world

 

[kingflupps]

Didn't lose me at all guys, your help was very useful. I currently have the green & bare soldered to ground on both, with the reds going to their respective end of the switch. Black and White soldered together and covered on both.

I did hit a bit of an annoying snag though - the screw holes on the Chopper T are a lot smaller than the screws used for my old bridge, gonna have to widen the holes I guess. I'll let you know how it goes, I'm off to the hardware store later.

 

[Parma_TeleMon]

Careful - the fiberboard on the bottom of those pups strips easily. And you may want to double-check the depth on them as well - my AreaT neck is way taller than the Fender OV that came out of it. I have no router, so I'm living with it, but I think I might like it better if weren't so close to the strings.