Repair on a Tanglewood Stingray copy pickup/control plate

[fearthebassplayer 4]

I have a Tanglewoord 5 string Stingray copy that has 3 knobs and the input on a control plate:

 

 

 

The first knob does nothing, the second adjusts volume and the third adjusts tone. On opening the plate up I am presented with this:

 

The red and white wire on the left are soldered together, but not soldered to anything.

I am guessing that this is why the knob doesn't function.

Am I right in thinking that this is a connection from the pickup that controls volume for one of the coils?

Where should I resolder this to on the pot? directly onto it or one of the 3 legs?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[paul_5 1,488]

Most humbucker manufacturers go with the following convention:

red and green - south coil

black and white - north coil

So it looks like the 2 coils have been wired in series (one coil into the next) to give more output.

 

To get the classic ‘ray sound you’d have both coils running in parallel and a 2 band eq. 

If you’ve got a battery box in the bass already then it’s fairly simple to achieve this, but if not then it’s a lot more work.

To use two volume controls (one for each coil) as a passive arrangement follow standard Jazz bass wiring like this:

except that the top pot will have the black wire as the ‘hot’ and the white as ‘ground’ and the middle pot will have red as ‘hot’ and green as ‘ground’ .

you’ll probably notice less output like this, which might be why it’s wired in series in the first place...

[fearthebassplayer 4]

Thanks for that reply Paul.........it is passive with no battery box in place.........am i right in saying then that it would right to just leave it as it is wired already in this case?

 

[paul_5 1,488]

Try it, you might like it in parallel!

[fearthebassplayer 4]

1 minute ago, paul_5 said:

Try it, you might like it in parallel!

Think I'll give it a whirl.....I can always resolder it back again

 

Cheers for your help with that - first dabble with the electronics and thought I'd been done when i saw the wires disconnected!

 

[BassBunny 496]

You could always replace one of the vol controls with a Single/Series/Parallel switch. That way you get instant switching between the coils and only the 1 Vol control to worry about.

[fearthebassplayer 4]

4 hours ago, BassBunny said:

You could always replace one of the vol controls with a Single/Series/Parallel switch. That way you get instant switching between the coils and only the 1 Vol control to worry about.

Now that sounds good......is it something a basic person like me could work out? Also any wiring diagrams about for this?

[BassBunny 496]

It isn't that difficult. If you feel confident doing the 2 volume wiring, it shouldn't give you much trouble. I probably have some suitable wiring diagrams and will dig them out later. 

[fearthebassplayer 4]

6 minutes ago, BassBunny said:

It isn't that difficult. If you feel confident doing the 2 volume wiring, it shouldn't give you much trouble. I probably have some suitable wiring diagrams and will dig them out later. 

Magic.......I would really appreciate that

[gary mac 647]

It's not that easy to see the details on your pics (could be my eyesight though) but is the solder very messy. If it is, then it could be that someone inexperienced has been in there and caused damaged to the pots, by overheating them when soldering.

[BassBunny 496]

 

1 hour ago, gary mac said:

It's not that easy to see the details on your pics (could be my eyesight though) but is the solder very messy. If it is, then it could be that someone inexperienced has been in there and caused damaged to the pots, by overheating them when soldering.

@gary mac the last pic shows a red and white wire joined together and not soldered to anything. As suggested it looks like a previous owner has wired the pickup in series configuration. The soldering/wiring in general is pretty bad to say the least.

[BassBunny 496]

3 hours ago, fearthebassplayer said:

Magic.......I would really appreciate that

Here is the wiring for the 3-way switch that someone did to an OLP so exactly what is needed. they only went for Parallel/Series, but it's the same wiring if you use a different switch. You will need to identify which wires go to which coils so a multimeter would be handy. As there are 2 whites and one appears to be grounded on one of the pots, I assume, (maybe not), white is the ground for each coil so substitute White for Black on this diagram.

Green and Red I assume are the pickup hot and black is a common earth.

the switch you need is a DPDT On/On/On

[sly83 28]

Thanks mate! 

Very useful Diagram for my Project😎

[Maude 6,222]

For my passive pretend Ray I got @KiOgonto make me a rotary switch which takes a standard knob. It switches between bridge coil/both in series/both in parallel/neck coil. The control plate looks standard with a volume, tone and rotary switch.

I really like it. 

[Bigguy2017 156]

Green wire will need to touch tone pot body.