Activator PJ wiring and restoring

[Marko Ursin]

I bought a PJ Activator set and wiring needs some advice. Where do pickup wires go, which pot is which.
Also about the pickups; can I lightly sand the tops with fine wet and dry sand paper to get rid of the playing scars?

[mica]

Yeah, you can work on the decorative surface. you can test on the back a little as the polyurethane is poured in a silicone mold - there's no cover.

Let me find some pictures of these as see if that helps you with the rewiring. stand by

[mica]

Here's a couple of photos to get you started. The pot on the small board isn't original, so I'm not sure if the value is correct.
Also, keep in mind the shielded coil is very close tot eh front surface, so you might not be able to clear up all the wear and tear before hitting copper.

[Marko Ursin]

Thanks Mica!
Some more questions. What value should that replaced pot have? How do the pots wire to filter board and where do the pickups wires go? Pickups don’t have connectors so I think I need to find two of them and mount them to the pickup wires. Do I understand correct that I can replace one capacitor with two or three way Q switch?

[mica]

You have the pickup connectors already, just someone cut them not realizing they were modular. I've marked them in blue in the attached image so you could splice these on and protect with shrink tubing. You plug one pickup into each of the volume control boards.

The second image has an unconnected wire - can you tell me where the other end is? I think it may be one of the wires that connects the two volume boards that I marked in a white circle in the third image. The blue circles in image three show a wire that is cut very short on the small volume board that you will need to replace. Once the two volume boards are connected, the 3-pin and 2-pin connectors are already connecting the 2-volume harness to the filter module.

Can you post a picture of just the solder side of the smaller of the 2 volume boards? The pots mount directly to the board. You will need to use a desoldering iron or solder wick to remove the old pot first. Do be careful - if you overheat when you are removing the component, you can burn up the trace and trash the board.

The pots in the 2-volume Activator are 100K audio taper. You might be able to find this locally. If not, I do have spares.

[Marko Ursin]

I’ll check that loose wire later today. I think it’s best to test the filter before buying parts as the seller said it ”should” be ok. I have input, output and +9V wires sorted out so that should be easy.

[Marko Ursin]

After testing I can say that filter and bigger volume board work fine as well as the pickups. The smaller volume board with non-original pot has been fried when removing the original pot and the copper trails are lifting off the board. The black loose wire seems to be the one connecting the volume boards. Can I buy the smaller volume board separately? Or if I buy the pan board with two gains do I need to buy a new volume board? And can I modify this filter for Q-switch?

[mica]

Actually the pan preamp is the best solution because the output of the P and J pickups is so different. The P is the loudest pickup we make and the JZ is just about the lowest output, plus it's down where the string doesn't vibrate much. The drag is that you can't use the existing volume control so you only keep the original filter. You can find the pan preamp and the optional one-volume harness options in our online store.
Any Activator filter board can be modified to have a Q-switch. Same cautions apply for removing the capacitor on the board.

[Marko Ursin]

Thanks Mica.
I started assembling the electronics to my bass. I don’t quite understand all the wires from the output jack. Red is +9V, black is ground but what are white/red and purple? It looks like the battery negative is always connected. Does the jack switch the positive on when plug is inserted?

[JimmyJ]

Hey Marko,

I will take a guess at your answer even though I don't completely know the circuit...  Yes, battery negative is always connected and plugging a cable into the 1/4" jack switches on the positive side of the power.  Purple wire is traditionally the audio output signal.  Red/white is most likely how the battery power gets to the circuit board.  So, red and black from the battery, black and red/white power to the active board, purple audio output to the tip of the 1/4" plug.  Make sense?

Jimmy J

[Marko Ursin]

Makes sense. I haven’t seen positive switching jacks before, that’s what was strange for me. Thanks!

[Marko Ursin]

I have electronics working. I have PJ pickups, followed by a Noll active blend which output goes to volume board and filter board. One strange thing happens: if potentiometer or jack threads touch the control cavity shielding, I get a kind of short and the sound buzzes and distorts. When I removed the shielding around pot and jack holes, everything works great. What can cause this?

[Songdog]

Wild guess here... something about the power wiring of the mixed electronics?

Do you have a multimeter? Measure the DC voltage between the jack threads and the control cavity shielding. Umm, what is the control cavity shielding grounded to anyway?

[cntrabssn]

In Activator systems, the pickup shield (the braided part of the pickup lead) does not connect directly to the chassis ground. So I’m guessing that the Noll active blend is connecting it to ground, causing your problem. If lifting just the blend pot connection to the cavity shielding fixes things, then I would try sticking with that. However, the output jack sleeve should connect to the cavity shield for it (the shielding) to be effective.

[Marko Ursin]

In Activator systems, the pickup shield (the braided part of the pickup lead) does not connect directly to the chassis ground. So I’m guessing that the Noll active blend is connecting it to ground, causing your problem. If lifting just the blend pot connection to the cavity shielding fixes things, then I would try sticking with that. However, the output jack sleeve should connect to the cavity shield for it (the shielding) to be effective.

This makes sense, I’ll lift the blend off the shielding and see how things work then. Thanks!
Edit. Problem solved just as described. I lifted the Noll blend pot off the shielding and connected everything else to the shielding and it works just as it should. Thanks one more time!