Why I don't like Emerson's pre-wired kits

[grayback]

I recently put an Emerson kit in my Squier P bass. It was a tight fit, and the pot shafts were loose, very noticeable after the knobs were installed. I made sure the nuts on the pots were tight, but I still have movement.
Now, I'm starting to get an occasional static pop from the jack.
Not pleased with this product, I'm gonna replace it with components from Stewmac and wire it myself.

 

[2HBStrat]

A few years ago I bought some Emerson treble bleed circuits. I didn't like them because they didn't keep the tone the same when turning down the volume.

 

[Peegoo]

I recently put an Emerson kit in my Squier P bass. It was a tight fit, and the pot shafts were loose, very noticeable after the knobs were installed. I made sure the nuts on the pots were tight, but I still have movement.

Make sure you install an inside star washer on the pots and jack before you insert them into the mounting plate. The washer goes on the component side--not the nut side.

 

[SPUDCASTER]

With the exception of fret work/replacement. I can do about everything else guitar related. Still working on the playing end of it.

If I had to rely on a repair shop. I'd have a 3-4 hour drive north or south to a qualified shop. I'm pretty hands on and that helps. I've definitely had a few "trial by fire" episodes.

Pre-wired kits are generally for the person that doesn't care to learn how to solder, can't solder or has trouble with schematics. Or would really rather pay someone else to do it.

Maybe a thread like this will get Emerson to change a few things? You hope someone in their organization keeps an eye on sites like this.

 

[charlie chitlin]

I still think buying a pre-wired kit is like hiring someone to cut your steak for you.
Don't get me started on 35cents worth of cap and resistor twisted together to make an 8 dollar treble bleed.
You STILL have to solder to the switch, ground and output jack, so you might as well do it yourself.
For the same money, you can probably buy the pots, a pack of caps, a couple rolls of wire, a roll of hookup wire and a couple fresh tips for your iron, and that solder sucker you've been looking at (you know you need one!), and take somepride in the fact that you did it yourself AND have some supplies for future tinkering.
Now turn off those Friends reruns and get crackin'!

 

[Festofish]

Tell them it doesn't fit, and just install the components as you normally would. Just make sure it's cheaper so the customer doesn't complain. They can send their stuff back to Emersons for a refund, no harm, no foul.

Except you lied to them. But whatever, it's not like they were ever inviting you over for Christmas.

Not a great way to treat or keep your customers.

 

[KokoTele]

I still think buying a pre-wired kit is like hiring someone to cut your steak for you.
Don't get me started on 35cents worth of cap and resistor twisted together to make an 8 dollar treble bleed.
You STILL have to solder to the switch, ground and output jack, so you might as well do it yourself.
For the same money, you can probably buy the pots, a pack of caps, a couple rolls of wire, a roll of hookup wire and a couple fresh tips for your iron, and that solder sucker you've been looking at (you know you need one!), and take somepride in the fact that you did it yourself AND have some supplies for future tinkering.
Now turn off those Friends reruns and get crackin'!

It's more akin to hiring someone to cook your steak for you. There's some knowledge and skill required, even if those are relatively easy to attain. Still, some people never really develop those cooking skills and what they make is mediocre by most standards, and dog food by a chef's standards.

There's a learning curve to wiring a guitar circuit and doing it well, and it requires tools a person may not have or even need for anything else. When I was a pup, the Air Force gave me a scholarship to be an electrical engineer. One of the first labs we had was "introduction to soldering." They gave us buckets of spare components and told us to solder together sculptures with just a little basic instruction. Some of us had experience or aptitude (or both) and quickly made beautiful solder joints. Others burnt their fingers and made messy joints, and some of them couldn't tell the difference between their joints and what a good one looked like.

I totally get buying a premade assembly. I just wish Emerson did a better job of it on the product they sell.

 

[charlie chitlin]

It's more akin to hiring someone to cook your steak for you. There's some knowledge and skill required, even if those are relatively easy to attain. Still, some people never really develop those cooking skills and what they make is mediocre by most standards, and dog food by a chef's standards.

There's a learning curve to wiring a guitar circuit and doing it well, and it requires tools a person may not have or even need for anything else. When I was a pup, the Air Force gave me a scholarship to be an electrical engineer. One of the first labs we had was "introduction to soldering." They gave us buckets of spare components and told us to solder together sculptures with just a little basic instruction. Some of us had experience or aptitude (or both) and quickly made beautiful solder joints. Others burnt their fingers and made messy joints, and some of them couldn't tell the difference between their joints and what a good one looked like.

I totally get buying a premade assembly. I just wish Emerson did a better job of it on the product they sell.

What Im saying is, you have to solder ANYWAY.
You still need an iron and have to attach the pickups, which often involves heating a pot enough to attach the ground. You have to attach the ground from the bridge/tailpiece and solder wires to the jack. That's like 1/3 of the job you have to do no matter what.

 

[old wrench]

If you are going to spend that sort of money on a wiring harness, you might want to check out this guys stuff -

Jackson Electronic Luthier Parts | Reverb

Reverb is a marketplace bringing together a wide-spanning community to buy, sell, and discuss all things music gear.

reverb.com

Quite a few years ago I purchased a Les Paul wiring harness from him and was very happy with the quality of the parts and the excellent workmanship

On all of the harnesses that I've built myself since then, I've used that LP harness from Rand as a quality standard to shoot for


.

 

[Nicko_Lps]

Why on EARTH use solid core wire as cable to jack.

Come on...
Solid core wire and 300V capacitors are a must have

 

[oregomike]

Emerson sells some pretty snazzy looking prewired control kits for many different models, but in practice I've found that they're not all that incredible.

Here's the latest one I installed for a customer. (He brought the kit to me to install. If he hadn't, I would have just installed the components that I sell.)

This is the wire to the output jack, which broke off underneath the heat shrink they put over the lug on the volume pot. Was a bit of a bugger to troubleshoot because the heat shrink kept the wire in place to mostly make good contact, but if something got wiggled the right way contact would be broken. They use solid core wire in their builds. I assume that it's because it looks pretty and a very neat job can be done, but this application really needs stranded wire, at least for the leads to the output jack.

View attachment 1102372

Other nits... below is the image from their page. See that bare wire they use to ground the two pots? Looks neat. But they always solder it to the side of the pots, which makes the assembly too wide to fit in most control cavities. I always move it or replace it with a stranded wire. The fat cap (also unnecessary) means that there isn't enough room to just move the ground bar to the backs of the pots.

And the soldering, though neat looking, wasn't done at a high enough temperature for the solder to flow to all the connections properly. They're working now, but ultimately at least one will fail.

$90 for this neat looking mess. (Rant over )

View attachment 1102374

I tried one from Emerson when I was feeling lazy. I did't have those problems, but did have the same assembly fit issue because of that wire.

Even more surprising, I (really not being lazy, just impatient with oos parts) bought an assembly from Fralin where it had "helper wires" all soldered to their spots, with labels of where each went. I get the idea, but the soldering was a bit messy and I could have spent less time soldering them myself, and a cleaner job. Probably not a legitimate gripe. Love Fralin's pups and they're pretty much all I use, except for my JM (Novak), so was a little surprised.

 

[hepular]

I bought this one from 920D for my pinecaster project, very nice quality stuff, fits well and for the price of all the parts individually, I feel it's a good deal. View attachment 1102699 View attachment 1102700 View attachment 1102701 View attachment 1102702

dunno . . . that side-wired ground wire looks a little tight the side of the cavity, especially were someone to shield the cavity . . .