Installing Pickup

Jerryc41

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I want to get this right the first time. ;)

I have the thin little disk that goes under the bridge - two wires coming off it. I also have the "thing" that the amp plugs into. From what I understand, I connect the two wires from the disk to the two terminals on the plug-in. Either wire can go to either terminal.

Does that sound right?
 
If you're cutting out the preamp and just wiring this passive, with the pickup direct to the jack, the black wire should go to ground. A piezo will work either way, but the larger pad is connected to ground, so the minimal noise shielding it provides should be on the ground side of the circuit. The red wire is your hot, or signal, and should go to the terminal for the tip of the jack.

A mono 1/4" jack will have two connections - one for the sleeve, and one for the tip. The sleeve should be your ground, the tip should be your signal.

A stereo jack will have a sleeve, a ring, and a tip. With a passive pickup wired directly to the jack, the ground should go to the sleeve and the signal should go to your tip - you ignore the ring terminal, or (in a passive instrument) you can solder a jumper from the ring terminal to the sleeve terminal.

If your jack didn't come with a wiring diagram or any indication of which terminal is which, sometimes you can tell just by looking at them. For a barrel jack where everything is sealed up inside, it's hard to see, but you can test with a multimeter - plug a cable into the bare jack. Put your multimeter in continuity (or resistance) mode. Grab the far end of your cable, and touch one probe to the tip of the far end. Touch the other probe to each solder terminal on the jack, one at a time, until you find the one that lights the meter up. That's the terminal for the top of the jack. To be extra sure, you can move your far-end probe to the sleeve on the other end of the cable, and touch the other jack terminals, and they should all light up, indicating that they are the ring and/or sleeve and not the tip. When a mono cable is plugged in to a stereo jack, the ring and sleeve terminals both touch the sleeve on the jack, and the tip terminal is separate (for the signal).

A small number of barrel style jacks come with one "extra" solder terminal, in addition to those for the sleeve, ring, and tip. The extra terminal is connected to the case of the jack and is meant as a "chassis ground" point. In a simple instrument like you're building, you don't need a separate chassis ground. You can leave that terminal unconnected, or you can use a small wire as a jumper and connect it to the sleeve terminal.

Don't mean this to be overwhelming but I also wanted to be thorough!

The good news, at the end of the day, is that a passive piezo disc is very versatile and will work as long as you have one side connected to the tip and one side connected to something that's grounded - and if you get it wrong, there is zero chance of doing harm! So if the above is confusing, you can always just try any two terminals, and if it doesn't work, try two others.
 
If you're cutting out the preamp and just wiring this passive, with the pickup direct to the jack, the black wire should go to ground. A piezo will work either way, but the larger pad is connected to ground, so the minimal noise shielding it provides should be on the ground side of the circuit. The red wire is your hot, or signal, and should go to the terminal for the tip of the jack.

A mono 1/4" jack will have two connections - one for the sleeve, and one for the tip. The sleeve should be your ground, the tip should be your signal.

A stereo jack will have a sleeve, a ring, and a tip. With a passive pickup wired directly to the jack, the ground should go to the sleeve and the signal should go to your tip - you ignore the ring terminal, or (in a passive instrument) you can solder a jumper from the ring terminal to the sleeve terminal.

If your jack didn't come with a wiring diagram or any indication of which terminal is which, sometimes you can tell just by looking at them. For a barrel jack where everything is sealed up inside, it's hard to see, but you can test with a multimeter - plug a cable into the bare jack. Put your multimeter in continuity (or resistance) mode. Grab the far end of your cable, and touch one probe to the tip of the far end. Touch the other probe to each solder terminal on the jack, one at a time, until you find the one that lights the meter up. That's the terminal for the top of the jack. To be extra sure, you can move your far-end probe to the sleeve on the other end of the cable, and touch the other jack terminals, and they should all light up, indicating that they are the ring and/or sleeve and not the tip. When a mono cable is plugged in to a stereo jack, the ring and sleeve terminals both touch the sleeve on the jack, and the tip terminal is separate (for the signal).

A small number of barrel style jacks come with one "extra" solder terminal, in addition to those for the sleeve, ring, and tip. The extra terminal is connected to the case of the jack and is meant as a "chassis ground" point. In a simple instrument like you're building, you don't need a separate chassis ground. You can leave that terminal unconnected, or you can use a small wire as a jumper and connect it to the sleeve terminal.

Don't mean this to be overwhelming but I also wanted to be thorough!

The good news, at the end of the day, is that a passive piezo disc is very versatile and will work as long as you have one side connected to the tip and one side connected to something that's grounded - and if you get it wrong, there is zero chance of doing harm! So if the above is confusing, you can always just try any two terminals, and if it doesn't work, try two others.

Thanks. I might get to this today.

This will be a mono setup.
 
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