Hello and help needed!

[Boromedic]

Hi all, new to the forum and trying to find my way around! Nice to be here and looking forward to some chatting about guitars.

I have purchased a 2008 UES130 which is great, polished it up and restrung it and playing acoustically it sounds great! Unfortunately when I plugged it in today there's a hum through the amp. It will ground if I touch a ground like the metal plug on the cable or the shielded pickup wire through the f hole, so its suggestive of a ground touching something it shouldn't.

Any ideas on where to start looking/troubleshooting so I don't start pulling the whole thing out unnecessarily!

Thank you so much,

Al

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Does it stop when you touch the strings? But independent from that, the problem is inside the guitar so to fix it you'll very likely need to pull the harness anyway I guess. Don't forget to tape off the f-hole edges!

 

[Boromedic]

Does it stop when you touch the strings? But independent from that, the problem is inside the guitar so to fix it you'll very likely need to pull the harness anyway I guess. Don't forget to tape off the f-hole edges!

Thank you for your help, I'm dreading that! Might have a poke around first and try and see if something has landed where it shouldn't. Thanks

 

[Sigmania]

And be sure it's not your cable. LOL

 

[Boromedic]

And be sure it's not your cable. LOL

Hahaha, yeah I checked, cable all good. That would have been embarrassing

 

[Sigmania]

I had a buzz that I couldn’t figure out. I thought it was my Jack. Turned out it was the cable I used to wire the speaker inside my amp. I didn’t realize you can’t just use a spliced patch cable. Speaker wire is different. Lesson learned.

Good luck sorting it out.

 

[Boromedic]

I had a buzz that I couldn’t figure out. I thought it was my Jack. Turned out it was the cable I used to wire the speaker inside my amp. I didn’t realize you can’t just use a spliced patch cable. Speaker wire is different. Lesson learned.

Good luck sorting it out.

Thanks mate, will update with pics and things once I can get a chance to sort it.

 

[Boromedic]

Long story but I'll keep this short, I've located and temporarily fixed the issue for now so at least the hum has gone which is good!

So I figured it was definitely a ground hum as if I touch the metal jack plug, the nut on the jack plug, the nut on the switch or the actual wire shield the hum stopped.

I tested all of them to see if there was continuity between them and there was. The wire into the tailpiece stud appears to touch the stud inside, however when I try to get continuity from that wire to the parts mentioned there is none. I chased the wire from the tailpiece and it seems it's wrapped around the shield from one of the pickup wires and soldered to it above the neck volume pot.

So I've had time to have another dig around this pm and lo and behold I tested the other end of the cable, which is actually soldered to the braid that's grounded to the neck volume pot and I had continuity from there to the other parts such as the jack nut and switch nut. So I thought hmmmm...

I tested from that same end to the end of the cable in the stud cavity, no continuity. So I'm guessing the cable was damaged during the install of the new harness when feeding it through the hole, but not enough initially to lose connection.

For some reason it's finally broken connection either in transit or with me inadvertently turning the studs during restringing and setup. I think that it's been damaged/started to break during the install as when I tried to ease more cable into the stud cavity to re-terminate and fix the continuity the cable broke off

So I've gone for a retro vintage repair at present, I pulled the cable into the F hole and fed it over the top into the stud cavity and screwed the stud in. Now I have continuity and no buzz! So winner winner

Not ideal but at least I know what the issue is, hahaha.

So it's working but will eventually need a more permanent repair. Sounds great though

 

[Boromedic]

 

[Boromedic]

Can you spot the ghetto repair??!

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Barely.