Grounding issue?

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snipelfritz
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Grounding issue?

Post by snipelfritz »

Hey all,

At practice yesterday I noticed my semi-hollowbody making a humming noise regularly even with the volume pots all the way down. I did notice however the buzzing stops any time I touch anything metal on the guitar (knobs, strings, tuning pegs). I assume there's something wrong with the electronics in there, but I'm not quite sure if this is an issue I can solve easily.

Either way my noise gate covers up the humming, but I'd like to figure out why it's happening. :idk:
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skullservant
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Re: Grounding issue?

Post by skullservant »

Yep, grounding issue. Not a hard fix at all. It'll be pretty evident once you open things up where the connection to ground was lost
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excane
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Re: Grounding issue?

Post by excane »

Definitely grounding. For me, it's been the ground wire to the bridge in most cases.
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Re: Grounding issue?

Post by Noise... »

Another vote for grounding issues. I have the same issue in my CIJ Jag. The wires are so brittle that they just snap sometimes with import guitars.

I'd say it's an easy fix, but everything is a pain in the ass with semi-hollows and hollow-bodies. See what you can do by poking around where you can and go from there. Odds are it's just a cold solder joint or one that snapped off.
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Isher
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Re: Grounding issue?

Post by Isher »

If you can, gob the ground wire with enough solder so it can't back out of the hole and stop making contact with the bridge. It's most likely a rogue bridge ground.

I don't think it's a pot ground if it only pops/makes noises when touching a part of the body. I opened a Squier today and realized one pot was grounded to the bridge, but not grounded to the other pot and I didn't have any pops when touching it. I still went ahead and grounded everything together though.
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Re: Grounding issue?

Post by Noise... »

I found the issue with my CIJ Jag. They simply forgot to put a ground line on the jack at the factory. I was digging around in the control panels on every restring looking for the issue, and it ended up being something that obvious. How I didn't catch it sooner is beyond me.
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