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Cranium

Cranium

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Im planning to buy a new pickup and I never installed a pickup myself, firstly where do I buy all the needed parts and what parts do I need exactly? What types of soldering iron's and do I need any other tools? Also it would be nice if someone posted a small tutorial here, its a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage model and I think the only diffrence is the wire colors, they have a guide on Dimarzio site but I still need to know what soldering iron's I need. Thanks :D
 
Though I have never installed a pickup, I have some experience with soldering and therefore can offer you some advice on what to buy. Firstly, buy the most powerful soldering iron you can afford. Though it might sound as if the hotter the soldering iron, the more likely it is to damage the pickup/pot etc., the opposite is the case, as the soldering iron will be able to melt the solder more rapidly, before heating up the rest of the component. Secondly, buy some flux core solder, as it is a hassle to apple some flux before the solder. To hold the soldering iron, a decent quality stand should be purchased, and I recommend getting one with a spongy cleaning pad that is used to clean the solder tip after soldering. Though I don't use gloves when soldering (as it makes fine connections hard to do), a heatproof mat is a necessity as it prevents your table etc. from catching fire. Finally, it's a good idea to buy a "third hand" - something like this http://www.rjsintl.com/productDetails.asp?product_id=T166
This is due to the fact that it is hard to hold two components together, apply solder, and use the iron. As I said, I have never installed a pickup, but I can advise you on certain practices. To solder two components, the first thing that must be done is to "tin" the wires or contacts before soldering them together. To do this, the soldering iron must heat the part that is to be soldered, until it is hot enough to melt solder on - for example, to tin wire, the soldering iron must be pressed down on the wire until it is hot enough to melt some solder on (this will take from around 2 seconds or more depending on the iron), and then enough solder should be applied to just lightly coat the wire, so that it appears silver (no blobs of solder should be present). Once the components have been tinned, they can be soldered together. They should be clamped together, so that an electrical connection is already present. After this, the soldering iron should be applied to the connection, and when the tinned joint melts, enough solder should be applied to securely fasten the two components. The joint produced should look something like this, if a wire is being connected to the pickup selector
http://www.antex.co.uk/images/betterfig5.jpg.
After the soldering is finished, the tip of the soldering iron should be rubbed against the (dampened with a bit of water) spongy cleaning pad, to get rid of all solder and flux.
Hope this helped.
 
I love soldering too. I figured it out by trial and error. I'm glad we have experts that can save us the error part.

I found that if you don't have a 3rd hand tool then some locking hemostats work too to hold things together while the solder is being applied. These can be found in all sorts of places: pawn shops, fishing shops, craft stores and even the Jersey shore from what I hear. If you have a friend that is in the surgery business have them get you a pair or two. They come in handy for other household chores and fishing as well.
 
Winky, you scared me so much with your post now Im definatley going to a shop to do it. :(
 
Cranium said:
Im planning to buy a new pickup and I never installed a pickup myself, firstly where do I buy all the needed parts and what parts do I need exactly? What types of soldering iron's and do I need any other tools? Also it would be nice if someone posted a small tutorial here, its a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage model and I think the only diffrence is the wire colors, they have a guide on Dimarzio site but I still need to know what soldering iron's I need. Thanks :D
Click to expand...

A 25 watt Weber soldering iron will work well. You can get one at Home Depot.

Simply replacing a pickup isn't hard. Once you know the color coding of the wiring, just desolder the old pickup wires from the contact points, and solder the new ones in their place.

If you haven't had much experience soldering, practice on some old junk components...an old radio or computer or something. You want to heat the terminal that you're soldering the wire to, then introduce the solder until you have a nice shiny molten bead. Always let the solder joint air cool slowly...don't blow on it or use a fan. It's not hard. With a little practice you'll be soldering well.

A Weber soldering iron? What's that? My mind must have been in the BBQ thread when I wrote that. It's a Weller Einstein...:o
 
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Its so hard to do anything when everyone is saying diffrent things! Blooz sais 25 watt solder, TW sais the most powerful and on the website he posted it recommends 60 watts for the pots, grrr. :mad:
 
No matter what the wattage is on the soldering iron (the lower the better) try to use aligator clamps when at all possible. They help absorb the heat, which can melt the plastic around the wires.

Personally, I think a 25 watt iron is pushing the limit. Wire coatings will melt unless your experienced and fast.

I am in the process of learning how to cold solder. It works on a battery and can be bought at RS. You should have seen them on TV.
 
Dont get intimidated for your purposes a 60-80 watt unit will do all you want for typical small home type stuff my little 80 watt works fine ( 20.00 at Lowes). Get your solderin stuff and some extra wire and do a few practice joints. Youll see it isnt brain surgery......unless you soldering your friends brain for em...Ouch!
You can do this!
 
Now since Tim scared me even more Im definatly going to have it done in a shop. :(
 
Like Mark said ... practice, practice, practice. I have been in ham radio for over 20 years. My little 15 watt RS iron has built many a projects. The main thing to remember is to be quick. Melt the solder and remove the iron. Preperation of the wires and a clean solder tip is also important.

Most wires have a thin insulation on them. After removing the plastic from around the wire, take a piece of sand paper and lightly sand the bare wires. Twist the two wire togethers. Touch the solder to the clean hot tip to coat the tip with solder. Touch the bare wires with the soldering iron and solder at the same time. Within a second the soldered will flow. Instantly remove the iron and solder.

That's all there is! Here are a fews sites to visit.

Basic Soldering:
http://www.elexp.com/t_solder.htm

Remember the heat sink:
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/solder.htm

Cold Soldering:
http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/solderfaq.htm
 
So I just warm up the iron, put the solder on it, then together with the wire I apply it to the pots then remove the solder and hold the wire in place for a few seconds until it just stays there? Also can you please post some links where I can buy the exact solders, maybe 20 watts so I can see how it looks just incase.
 
Hey Cranium, I'm with you. I did some soldering on a part-time job I had many moons ago. I'm not sure how much I remember. Since there's such a long length of wire going to the pickup, you'd be hard pressed to damage the pickup itself. Even if you would over-cook a pot, that's only a few bucks for a new one. Everything I've read online apart from this thread encouraged the lowest wattage iron possible. Then again, I have no experience in this.
 
I think Robert can help me out, he replaced pickups on his guitars a few times, otherwise I will go have a shop do it for me.
 
Well, I always recommend a lower wattage soldering iron for beginners until the develop a feel for soldering. It's pretty easy to destroy a pot if too much heat is applied for too long.

Cranium, this isn't that hard to learn, so don't put too much pressure on yourself. Just practice enough until you're confident you can do it. Unless you're all thumbs, I have the confidence that you can learn. Just believe that you can do it and you'll do it. Besides, soldering is the key to most mods on a guitar...it's a basic skill.

Just remember what Yoda said..."Do or do not. There is no try." :D
 
I think the best solution would be for you to enlist someone with experience to change your pickups, and then you could watch them do it, so that in the future you would be better equipped for the job. Certainly, if you are not confident, then it is unlikely the installation would be satisfactory.
 
two words.....duct tape.....anything can be fixed with duct tape and you won't burn your fingers or melt your plastic! ;)

ww
 
Kay guys, a 20 watt soldering iron should handle the job? What type of soldering iron should I buy? They all have diffrent shape and such.
 
I just looked at my old soldering iron that I've had for ages. It's a 25 watt Weller. A model SP23 or something...it doesn't matter, they probably stopped making that model about the time of the moon landings... ;)

You want something like a pencil type soldering iron. Something with a relatively small, tapered (rounded) tip.

They cost less than $20.00 at Home Depot if I remember correctly.

Being the "make something out of nothing" type that I am, I took a coat hanger and twisted it into a kind of a spiral helix to hold my soldering iron. I've been using that thing for several years now...works fine. You may want to avoid the embarrasment of having to explain it to people, so you may want to just buy one when you get your new iron...:rolleyes:
 
Aren't you seposed to hold the soldering iron with your hands, or will I need some special gloves? Does the soldering iron come with a spunge and the solder and the stand or will I need to buy them seperatley? Where is the safest place to perform the operation? Sorry for all the questions ;)


Edit: Sorry but I need to know, whats the diffrence between wiring a single coil like a humbucker or like a single, I heard some talk of pickups wired in HB mode and single but have no idea how to do it, could you please explain, I want to wire it in single coil mode.
 
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;)
Cranium said:
Aren't you seposed to hold the soldering iron with your hands, or will I need some special gloves? Does the soldering iron come with a spunge and the solder and the stand or will I need to buy them seperatley? Where is the safest place to perform the operation? Sorry for all the questions ;)


Edit: Sorry but I need to know, whats the diffrence between wiring a single coil like a humbucker or like a single, I heard some talk of pickups wired in HB mode and single but have no idea how to do it, could you please explain, I want to wire it in single coil mode.
Click to expand...

OK, let's start with the soldering iron. You can buy a fixed wattage iron (about 20-25 watts) for about $20.00. If you then add the stand and sponge pad you're looking at about $40.00 total...OR...you can buy a nice soldering station like this one for about $45.00:
390a0fae871b01c8b3b6d53264ccefd1.jpg

WLC100 is the model. This unit is variable wattage from 5w-40w and will cover anything you're likely to encounter as a hobbyist. I'm not sure who carries this station, but I'd check the usual suspects first; Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc.

For solder, I'd recommend 60/40 tin/lead, rosin core. Having some paste flux around is a good idea also. You can buy this at Radio Shack.

Your DiMarzio Virtual Vintage pickup is wired like this:

Bare wire = ground
Green wire = ground
Black/White = Soldered together to connect active coil with dummy coil.
Red = Hot

So for a Strat type wiring scheme (and many others as well), you'd connect the hot wire (red) to the proper lug on the switch. The bare wire and the green together go to the common ground (usually the back of one of the pots). The black/white combination doesn't connect to anything else (and should be insulated to prevent grounding out).

If your current single coil pickup is wired with vintage type color coding, the pickup you're replacing should have a white wire to the switch, and a black wire to the common ground.

So, you're going to de-solder the original pickup wires from their terminals, and solder the wire from your V V in their place according to the above color coding.

It's pretty much that simple...other than removing the adjustment screws and springs to remove/replace the pickup itself. How to do that is pretty self evident when you look at the pickup as it sits in the pickguard.

Now if I was with OSHA, I'd tell you that you should wear flame retardant gloves, a long sleeve cotton (or flame retardant) shirt, safety glasses, a hardhat, and work with a flame retardant blanket under your work. Well I'm not with OSHA, so I'll tell you that the only things I mentioned that I do employ are the safety glasses and the flame retardant material under my work.

So...it's time to get started! Soon you'll be just like the rest of us crazy nut modders, tweaking everything you buy in search of the "Holy Grail" of tone...:rolleyes:

BTW: Some very useful tools to have when you're soldering are a few pairs of hemostats in various sizes and shapes...those stainless steel clamping tools that surgeons use. You can usually find them pretty cheap at flea markets. They're great for holding wire and parts together while soldering. They will also come in handy later on as heat sinks when soldering capacitors and resistors in wiring circuits...but we'll save that for lesson #2...
 
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So Blooz if I wanted to route it like a single coil then I would just leave the black and white wire not connected to anything?
 
Cranium said:
So Blooz if I wanted to route it like a single coil then I would just leave the black and white wire not connected to anything?
Click to expand...

This is the single coil size Virtual Vintage pickup we're talking about here and not the Virtual PAF, isn't it? If so, then this pickup has to be wired as a single coil. It's a "humbucker" only in that an extra (stacked) coil is incorporated in RWRP to cancel the hum. You can't seperate these two coils without creating a very noisy single coil (that would probably be very weak as well).

So yes, the black and white wire should not be connected to anything other than each other. The pickup should come from the factory with the black and white connected to each other with an insulated splice cap over the connection. Just pretend that the white/black wires don't exist...ignore them. Just connect the red to hot, and the bare & green to ground.

In the case of a full size, side by side coil humbucker, seperating the white and black wires would be done to "split", or actually "tap" one of the coils.
 

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