JohnH89

Some of my best ideas have come when walking the dogs . New dog arrived an hour ago from greyhound rescue so all 3 will need a walk this afternoon .

With regards to all the above posters , and Rob himself , I would not go too far down the route of adjustable pickup placement . Whilst it is wonderful from an engineering point of view , it is yet another variable to deal with . I can honestly say that at no point in my life , ever , have I thought that if only my bridge pickup was 5/16 of an inch closer to the the bridge , my tone would be perfect . Stick with the original plan . Is it possible to make a 3d printed bass that is playable ? And also beautiful , sounds good and is easy to play . 👍

Drop the shim to 1mm and you may be in the ballpark . If not then an angled shim will be the way forward . A small amount of angle on the shim will make a big difference to the action . It may take a bit of working out as the normal way is to set up the action and then adjust the pickups but it can be done . If the thinner shim is not enough, but an action of 2mm at fret 12 should be playable , try a slice of business card under the headstock end of the neck pocket . If it works , and it should , either leave it or print an angled shim .

I however have no real and paid work today . Wheres the fun in that ? 🤔

Hi Rob . How is the action of the guitar , ignoring the pickups . ? How high are the strings off the fretboard at the 12th fret ? Without seeing it , it may be a problem with the pickup height rather than the setup of the bass . Let me know and we will start getting it setup properly . I think the setup advice from the first one was done via PM .

The first iteration worked very well as a proof of concept and was built to a tight timescale so don't beat yourself up . The alterations to the design and engineering have been spectacular . Any help I can offer from here on in is willingly given . I do have a few ideas on the pickup front ......

Jeez Rob , you've been busy . Looking mighty fine so far . I'm guessing the filament suppliers will be taking a holiday on the business you put their way .😁

I loathe and depise amazon . Working practices , anti union stance etc etc . Never have and never will buy anything from them . BUT . It is sharp business practice as people are lazy and money/value oriented . My major gripe is that customers expect every business to be the same 24/7 , feedback etc and answering emails at all hours of the day . My business consists now of 2 people . I am not going to answer emails at 0330 on a sunday . We are doing fine by the way 😁

Great work

Looking good mate . 😁

Dots and lines are for a little bit of guidance only . You will get used to playing by ear .

Entirely dependent on what frets are fitted . Slots can be recut with appropriate kerf saw and made to fit the veneer .

A bit more extreme but I have done a couple . The veneer was about 9mm thick . I guess you would call it a new fingerboard . 😁

Always happy to have my brains picked . It shouldn't take long 😁

Fate amenable to change ?

Wago connectors from any good electrical supply shop . Or screwfix . I use them for testing mostly and would always solder a permanent connection . I'm sure they would be alright as a permanent solution.

Yeah . Pretty much that . Need to swap ground and feed on one lipstick 👍

They need a bit of work if you are going to do it yourself . Need to alter wiring on one lipstick to get humbucking effect . I reckon it's worth a go . Need something off the wall to go with the 3d printing .

How about a pair of lipsticks wired as a humbucker ?

Telecaster neck pickup has 6 polepieces under the metal can . The lipstick pickup is essentially a bar magnet wrapped in wire , encased in a tube . Used by Danelectro amongst others . They can be picked up from ebay or similar for £10-£15 . They punch way above their weight to my ears . The hotrail one below it is a strat style pickup and also can be had relatively cheaply . The EMG comes in several flavours , mostly active but they do passive as well . They do run to about £100 though .

Went through a lot of these boards building a small amp powered by an 18v drill battery . TDA8932 and TPA3118 . Every TPA3118 board that I bought let out the magic smoke , except for one . Bought from various suppliers but all defective . Settled on the TDA8932 . 100% reliable so far . Caveat emptor .

Single lipstick pickup in the P bass position ? You may well be surprised how good they sound . A cheap strat sized rail humbucker ? blew me away when I tried it on a bass mounted up near the neck . Or maybe an EMG active soapbar ?

Bog standard poly caps is where you need to be . Don't buy in to the whole mojo tone cap thing Rob . Snake oil salesmen . Paper in oil capacitors died out about the time of Marconi for good reason .

Did you volume/volume/tone ? If not I would like to see the wiring diagram as that may be your hum problem if not wired right . I have a noisy power supply on my bench which I will sort out one day . I use a home made 40W amp that runs off a drill battery to test . Took that up to island in Scotland last week and between use with the bass , and as a bluetooth speaker , a 2mAh battery lasted over 8 hours .

Loving the JP pickup configuration . Not one I've seen before . Is it wired with two volumes or volume and blend ? Hum without the bass plugged in can't really be blamed on the bass . You will get hum with the J pickup soloed if you are in an RF noisy environment . I suspect that your problem may be with the control plate wiring as it is of suspect quality . If you need any assistance with either the setup or wiring debugging , let me know either here or via DM . Astounding progress in such a short time Rob . I will be interested on peoples thoughts after your bass bash this weekend .