My 498T pickup stopped working at its full volume after I had to reattach the ground sleeve to the pot. I've tried a new pot, but the volume is still the same, about half of what the 490 neck pick up is. I've tried wiring it direct to the switch, bypassing the controls, but the result was the same. The pickup measures 15.5k on the meter. I hope I haven't ruined the pickup somehow, please help me out.

Thanks

Sounds like a cold solder joint to me. recheck your soldering. It's pretty hard to mess up a pickup unless you take it apart.

I tried connecting straight to the jack and there was no difference. It's not like there is any unexplained buzzing, crackling or cutting in and out, when I turn the amps volume up it sounds fine, but if I switch to the 490 rhythm pick up I accidently start an earthquake...

ummm interesting. What kind of guitar? Did you change the pots,caps etc..

It's a 90's Epi Les Paul with a Gibson pickup upgrade (490R + 498T).
Yes, I've changed the cap (0.022uF) and volume and tone pots (500k) on the bridge side in the process of trying to fix it.

I have no idea about how this would occur, but could demagnetisation be a possible cause?

[Edited on 2/29/2008 by Beng]

It's possible, but I have installed tons of pickups and never had this happen. Did you take the humbucker apart? If so did you put the magnets back in correctly.

It's alot easier If we could see and hear...

Something came to me last night when I was in bed at about 4:30am that I'd completely forgotten about: just under two weeks ago, the volume dropped low briefly, for a couple of seconds and then came back full again, this happened twice, but I just blamed my less than mint effects pedal at the time and carried on as normal and didn't think anymore of it. It wasn't a crackly cut in sound like with a broken cable or jack, it was as smooth as if a switch had been flicked.

As I've had the pickup wired direct to the jack during my troubleshooting, it must be a fault in the pickup itself. Because the problem occured permantly after I'd resoldered the ground jacket I naturally assumed my dodgy soldering was somehow the cause, but I must have worsened the already existing fault more by tugging on the wire.

The connection from one of the coils could be broken, that would explain why it sounds at half volume... but then why would the meter still read 15.5k?

I'm going to have to open it up and have a look, any advice so I don't cause any more damage? I'm going to have to take off a pickup cover, but if I remember correctly, it's just soldered on at two points, so it should be simple.

Maybe I can fix it after all...

I just removed the pickup from the guitar, the wiring looks very secure from the outside.

If your unsure I would take it a tech or try the warranty deal.

Yes, I thinks that's probably wise, I could make it worse.

If you took the pickup apart you might have problems with the warranty.

Is is normal on a les paul that when the pickup switch is set to the middle position, both tone controls continue to have an effect even when one pickup volume is rolled to 0 and the other 10?

Hi. I just signed up to this forum after seeing this thread. I've searched google for this very same problem and couldn't find anything.

I am experiencing a very similar problem. I have an Ibanez S470 and I am having a problem with the bridge and neck position pick ups. Both of them seem to be outputting at a lower volume than the others. 2, 3, and 4 on the switch are just as loud as normal but 1 and 5 are quiet. The neck position seems to not have any of that fat bassy sound it used to. I hear less drive out of my amp when on these two pickups. When I turn my tone knob down it seems to cut drastically like all the drive is gone on 1 and 5. I can't get that bluesy clapton tone on the neck ( switch all the way back and tone knob down slightly) for that smooth sound I love to do sweeps on.

I have replaced the switch and everything was resoldered using the diagram from the ibanez site by my brother. I have also taken it to a friend that takes equipment maintanence classes at our community college. Both him and the instructor could not figure out the problem.

If anyone can help thanks in advance.