Charvel SoCal grounding issue

nigelpkay

Active member
I have one of the newer 2016-7 MIM models with the coil tap volume knob set up.
I’ve swapped the pickups a few times, and I’m not sure if I’ve done something wrong or if it was like that out of the gate as I only had the original Duncan distortions in a short time, but I’m getting horrible grounding buzz that only goes away when putting my hand on the floyd bridge or over the strings. Doesn’t seem to matter what pickup is selected, and all pots seems to be working fine, coil tap works fine etc.

Don’t see any loose wires and everything seems to be hooked up as it should (when replacing pickups I always put it back in the same spots, at least I think I did, not 100% on the ground wires)

Any ideas on the basics to troubleshoot? I have a multimeter but don’t know what to measure and where.
 
Trem claw wire seems fine.

Are there places in the wiring chain I can measure with a multimeter to narrow it down or does grounding not work like that?

Are the pots supposed to touch the foil shielding that is on the inside of the pickguard? I’ve seen some guitars where there is a litttle metal o-ring that goes from one of the components to touch the shielding. I don’t see one here.

Thanks for any tips, I’ve always soldered my own pickups and never had any issues before and don’t want to waste money on a tech.
 
It is a ground issue of some kind, I don’t know exactly where but if it stops when you touch the strings it’s a ground somewhere. Maybe a cold solder joint on a ground ?
 
Are you using noiseless springs? I had to shave some of the coating of the ends that make contact with the block and claw.
 
If it goes away when you touch the strings it means that the grounding itself works and that the bridge and strings at least are grounded properly. You are dumping all your noise to ground when you touch the strings, which otherwise get picked up by the electronics, which in turn means that they´re either not hooked up properly to ground or the shielding is insufficient and/or not hooked to ground.
 
I had the same issue before. What I did was line the entire control cavity and entire back of pick guard with copper shielding tape. The copper grounded everything together and solved my issue. Maybe not the cheapest solution but with my lack of electronics troubleshooting knowledge, it was the easiest solution.
 
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