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I did try cleaning spray. Also there is no scratchiness or any other stray noises coming from the pot.
Originally Posted by John A.
I am very grateful for all the advice I'm getting from you guys. I am going to try seeing if I can somehow get to that bent-over tab on the pot to check the solder joint without pulling the whole wiring harness.
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04-11-2019 02:28 PM
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Or the pot is defective. Hmmmm...sounds familiar.
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So... after much obsessing over this L5ces volume knob problem, I suddenly realized that the guitar was also making a lot of funky noises. I thought it was my newness to tube amps at first, it was my Princeton Reverb that I was playing through. But the ES175, the Epi ES175, the ES165, and even the Hagstrom I and Epiphone Broadway... none made the funky clicks and static that the L5 was producing intermittently.
Additionally, stashed in a closet, I had a complete wiring harness: jack, pots, Sprague Viamin Q caps, 3-way switch, the works, all pre-wired... whispering to me.
So today I pulled the whole harness out of the L5 and bread-boarded the new harness to make sure it will all fit so I can solder (just 4 solder joints) and stuff the yolk back into the egg-shell tomorrow. By afternoon, God willing, I will have a nice new wiring harness in there.
Also, with the old harness out I could properly test the neck volume pot and it checked out just fine. Top resistance was 550 or so, bottom was 1.5 or so. Evidently it was a problem with some mysterious crossing of wires, a funky ground somewhere, or some such gremlin. The leads from the neck pickup to the pot were spliced in two places, so evidently the former owner had experimented with the wiring a bit.
How hard can it be? Right?
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I would be leery of wiring everything exactly as it was in the guitar. Use a verified wiring diagram. You may have already done this, but just in case...
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The harness I'm using came pretty much wired up. Only the pickup leads need attaching and the tailpiece ground. Since very little of this is left to my ingenuity, there is a good chance of success here. On the other hand... Originally Posted by sgosnell
Im working with it today in short segments and not letting myself get tired and impatient. that's a big issue in this kind of work too!
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It makes sense the wiring was messed with. Though Gibson has had QC issues, their electronics are always stellar.
LOL with the transplant. Nervous surgery.
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Now that the old harness is out, please use the opportunity to check out that suspect pot. I’d really like to know what was wrong and whether any of our speculations were on the mark.
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Knowing that the wiring has been changed, I'd bet on miswiring, wire or wires connected to the wrong place. But it could be a bad solder joint, or the pot burned by a poor solderer.
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I am happy to announce that the new wiring harness transplant has been completed and is totally successful. The pics up topside are of the new harness. I confess I obsessed over every detail and it took me a very long time to finish. What for some of you would be a 20 minute job was for me a bigger project. A voice in my head kept saying "THIS IS A GIBSON L5!!!" So I worked in short stretches, took breaks, restudied things, and the result is the new wiring harness works wonderfully. I had a moment of panic when I saw the old selector switch was "long" and the new one was short, but it installed just fine and works perfectly. The new harness has 548 kO pots instead of the 300kO originals, and I think I like the wider range better.
In addition to a fully functional volume control, all the funky noises, clicks, buzzes, etc. I had periodically heard before are totally gone. In addition, the Gibson harness itself so far checks out just fine as far as I can tell. I need to try all the diagnostics suggested above, now that I can easily test each component. I plan to keep this harness and might put it in my Epiphone Broadway to upgrade that guitar a bit.
A worthwhile project. The only casualty is that I found the plastic tone knob's inner sleeve, the one that fits over the metal crank of the pot, had cracked and broke when I was putting it back on. So I need to buy a new tone knob, though the present one more or less stays on and works.
Thanks to all for your information, advice, and encouragement!
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No guts No glory.
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Rev, Lawson you did well and all on Good Friday. Those L5s will produce the sounds and you have it now. How about one of those demos you do and play the L5 I would to hear that.................
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I just might. What's odd... I know there are fierce debates about capacitors and which ones are better, sound better, whatever. I know some say there's absolutely no difference, others swear by paper-in-oil. Originally Posted by deacon Mark
This harness has Sprague paper-n-oil caps encased in metal "Vitamin Q"-and maybe it's just that I fixed all the grounding weirdness or the bad pot weirdness, who knows. But I think my L5 sounds notably better now. I also think this harness might not use the same way of wiring? The way the caps are wired looks different. Anyhow, I"m liking this a lot!
Plus I'm feeling a surge of testosterone which is a fun experience for a 64 year old!
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Obligatory chest-pounding and teeth-baring show of masculinity! Originally Posted by vinnyv1k
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I'm interested in the two harnesses and how they wire the tone control.
Here's the one the L5ces came with. The cap is wired entirely to the tone pot, from lug 1 to ground on the case.
Here's the new harness. The cap is wired from the center lug of the volume control to lug 1 of the tone control.
I think this second is the so-called "vintage" way of wiring the tone control capacitor. But I am not sure what's going on with the top picture.
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The wiring in the top picture is what I prefer. But two things: 1. It looks as if it's possible that the top lug on the volume might be shorting to the center lug, at least potentially. I can't really tell for sure from the photo, though. 2. What's with the braided wire from the bottom lug on the volume? It looks as if it's just cut off, but I can't really tell for sure. The hot wire from the pickup should go to that lug, and then to the center lug on the tone. That looks like what is going on, but maybe the leads from the pickup are just snipped off? That's a really sloppy soldering job on the top lug of the volume, and could very well be the source of the trouble. There are multiple ways of wiring two humbuckers, and all work to one degree or another. I'm not personally a fan of the bottom scheme, but as long as you like it, it's fine. It's certainly a neater job than the original.
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The top picture I've already snipped the leads and taken the harness out of the guitar. In both cases the wiring is not installed. On the bottom, I had laid the leads from the pickups over where they would go. I wish I'd gotten my pics a bit more systematically. Originally Posted by sgosnell
My curiosity was on how the two ways of wiring the capacitors affected the way the tone control works and interacts with the volume control.
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It's hard to express how much I appreciate all the listening, help, advice, information, and general cheering that you've all given on this process with me. IN the past, so often, when I was undertaking a project that was a little scary, being alone with nobody to ask a question of was a big part of the anxiety. Knowing you all are here and so generous with your ideas and information, and especially your experience, made me bold to undertake this project, and now I'm so pleased with it I wish somehow you could all sign it somehow.
As Joe D. often reminds us, this "place" is incomparable.
Thanks all. I'll try for a clip maybe tomorrow.
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