Grounding issue on guitar: Input Jack gone bad?

nightlight

nightlight

Well-known member
Just clutching at straws on this one. Plugged in my Strandberg 8 today and there was this really loud hum like a grounding issue. Even when playing, you could hear the hum underneath.

Popped open the electronics cavity and this is what I saw:

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Everything looks neat and tidy, so I’m not sure what the problem could be.

Had this happen to another guitar of mine once and the tech said it was a problem with the input jack, which he replaced.

Wondering if that’s the case this time as well? I’m not really good with a solder, so would hate to muck up what looks like a good soldering job.

Hope someone can tell me what I need to look for/just tell me to take it to a tech
 
That’s a nice clean control cavity.

Can’t tell too much from pictures but from what I see it looks fine. Try a different cable also, try wiggling the cable in the jack socket to see if it is intermittent, and try flipping the switch a few times as I’ve had corrosion in those cause cutting out.

Is or was the jack loose? I had a problem in the past where the jack rotated slightly and when I plugged a cable in, the the tip contacted the shielding and shorted out. That was a fun one to track down as it wasn’t apparent unless a cable was plugged in.

I assume passive pickups as I don’t see a battery connection.
 
Very nice and neat wiring. Better than what my shit usually looks like, that’s for sure.

If the hum is not going away at all when you touch the strings or bridge, that probably indicates the ground connection to the bridge has been lost somehow. This is that black wire coming from the little hole in the side of the cavity.

I can’t tell from the pictures where it’s actually being grounded in the cavity, but I’d follow it and try and see what that solder joint looks like. If it’s fine, the wire may have somehow moved under the bridge and lost it’s connection.
 
Last guitar I had this issue with, the solder connection was not good at the bridge/trem. Sometimes the metal is difficult to get solder to stick to and you have to rough it up a bit for it to work. Bit of new solder fixed it up.
 
I had a similar issue on a guitar recently, and it turned out to be a simple fix.

Before you do anything drastic, get some 0000 steel wool and clean the contact surfaces of the input jack (where the tip of the cable connects with the loop/arm of the jack inside the guitar body). What happens sometimes is that the surfaces oxidise and cause intermittent hums because it can't get a consistent connection. Leave it long enough, and you'll get no sound at all. It'll fool you into thinking the jack, cable, or wiring is bad when it just needs to be deoxidised.

Anyway, the fix costs you nothing if it turns out to be more serious. Took me longer to get the control cavity cover off than to fix the problem.
 
mnemonic said:
That’s a nice clean control cavity.

Can’t tell too much from pictures but from what I see it looks fine. Try a different cable also, try wiggling the cable in the jack socket to see if it is intermittent, and try flipping the switch a few times as I’ve had corrosion in those cause cutting out.

Is or was the jack loose? I had a problem in the past where the jack rotated slightly and when I plugged a cable in, the the tip contacted the shielding and shorted out. That was a fun one to track down as it wasn’t apparent unless a cable was plugged in.

I assume passive pickups as I don’t see a battery connection.
Click to expand...

Yeah, passive Seymour Duncan Sentient and Pegasus in this.

Don’t think the jack was loose ever, but I can’t remember. But let me check on this.

Sermo Lupi said:
I had a similar issue on a guitar recently, and it turned out to be a simple fix.

Before you do anything drastic, get some 0000 steel wool and clean the contact surfaces of the input jack (where the tip of the cable connects with the loop/arm of the jack inside the guitar body). What happens sometimes is that the surfaces oxidise and cause intermittent hums because it can't get a consistent connection. Leave it long enough, and you'll get no sound at all. It'll fool you into thinking the jack, cable, or wiring is bad when it just needs to be deoxidised.

Anyway, the fix costs you nothing if it turns out to be more serious. Took me longer to get the control cavity cover off than to fix the problem.
Click to expand...
I’ll try this out, thanks.

griff10672 said:
get a 10.00 dollar Multimeter and use the " Continuity " setting to find out if there's anything touching ground that shouldn't be ....

I'd start with the " hot " signal from the input jack
Click to expand...

I have a multimeter, will try this out too, thanks,
 
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