PCB board w/pots for 2016 trad HP

[redcoats1976]

i have a bad volume pot on my 2016 trad HP.took the board out,looked at those tiny solder joints and feel im over my head replacing the pot at home.tech at GC said its easier just to replace the whole board and didnt want to screw with it...what are my options here? i can join two wires but my soldering skills are not the best...wondering what years and models will interchange with the 2016 trad HP and if i found one with push/pull pots,etc. if its a simple plug and play or not.thanks in advance...

 

[ARandall]

A lot of PCB's are not made to have replaceable individual parts. Thats the one downside of the form factor.

 

[Roxy13]

Is this a LP or SG? I might have an SG one.

 

[redcoats1976]

LP..im wondering if i would be better served by gettinga prewired 50s kit with the pots,etc. and redoing the whole thing if i cant find the right PCB board.if i chop off the little connectors on the neck and bridge p/us is it fairly easy to hook the old p/u wires to the 50s style pot setup?

 

[Roxy13]

Yes, I did it on all my Gibsons. Just one caution....on all 3 of mine the wiring colors changed between the N and B pickups. I've posted about it several times. So use a multimeter to verify everything but this is how mine went:

Please help! - how to wire burstbuckers in a 2003 Les Paul Classic 1960

Dear Les Paul afficionados On the internet, I did not find one single step-by-step guide or diagram explaining how to do this. I want to install Burstbucker 61r and 61t into my 2003 "Les Paul Classic 1960". The burstbuckers are in the guitar now - unwired - but at this point, I'm not even sure...

www.mylespaul.com

 

[redcoats1976]

OMG...i should confess that i didnt do well in electronics class.

 

[Roxy13]

Do you have a multimeter? If not you can get a cheap one from Walmart, Harbor Freight, Amazon, wherever and it will be fine for this job. Set it to 20 k ohm. Chances are your neck pickup for sure will follow what I posted. Do these checks:

One lead on hot wire (red) and one on grounds and should see a normal pickup reading of 7+ k ohm on your meter. That is how you know you have the right hot and ground wires.

Now if you move the lead from the hot wire to either coil split wires you will get a reading that is half of what you had first. Keep the other lead on the ground wires when you do this.

Now when you do the bridge pickup first see if it's the same as the neck because some Gibsons are. If those above tests are not working right then you know it's different. In that case try one meter lead on the white wire and one on the 2 grounds and see if you get a normal pickup reading. Then try your test using the two coil split wires and everything will be identified.

And once you've done this once you will be able to do it for any unknown pickup that might come your way I've had some oddly wired Japanese pickups and some I think might have been from a Korean PRS and I had to figure out what was what.

 

[Roxy13]

Heck you can look at your PCB and see it too. With the pickups plugged in, are the wire colors going in the same order or not on the PCB?

 

[redcoats1976]

will have to look.i already pulled the PCB thinking i was just going to buy another pot and solder it in.then i saw those crowded little terminals and remembered my expert soldering skills...maybe not the best idea.

 

[Roxy13]

If doing this concerns you then any decent guitar tech should be able to do this for you.

 

[redcoats1976]

that was what i thought...maybe the tech at GC is not the best one to take it to.

 

[Roxy13]

I'd say that depends on what kind of tech you have at yours. Most of them don't seem to have a good reputation but that doesn't mean all of them are bad lol.

If you post your location someone here should have a recommendation I would think.

 

[redcoats1976]

bought a new board off stratosphere but im saving the old one.one of my old high school buddies made a career of electronics.if he cant fix it in 10 minutes it cant be fixed.he always teases me about the time i plugged my shop project(tube tester)in and the transformer died that same instant.instant power outage for the whole school.ive plugged it in other places with no problem but just before i do i flash back to that instant and expect darkness...LOL

 

[Juan Wayne]

will have to look.i already pulled the PCB thinking i was just going to buy another pot and solder it in.then i saw those crowded little terminals and remembered my expert soldering skills...maybe not the best idea.

A regular pot will fit just fine. You can add a piece of wire to make the legs for it, and the holes are huge so you don't need to be particularly precise or experienced to do it.