Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

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wproffitt
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Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by wproffitt » Fri May 18, 2018 3:03 pm

Hello all!
I’m putting together a parts JM now and am trying to figure out what to do about the wiring harness. For about 60 bucks, I can get a kit like this with all the parts:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P2 ... em_1p_2_ti

For about 90-100 bucks, I can get one that’s prewired.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00PIVMU ... ref=plSrch

How much of a pain is getting this soldered together? I put together an amp last summer, but want to know if this is 30 min of work (not worth the extra dough for the prewired harness) or 2 hours of work (totally worth the money!)

Thoughts?

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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Fri May 18, 2018 3:36 pm

If you've built an amp, you should be fine. Personally, I could never see paying for a wiring harness as I'm a decent soldered, and wire isn't that expensive by far.

I can't speak to soldering a JM specifically, but guitar wiring is pretty easy. I've built a few from just wood, and the wiring isn't bad, unless you're doing a unique wiring schematic. A basic JM wiring schematic should be very easy.
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by mackerelmint » Fri May 18, 2018 3:46 pm

It's plenty easy to do. I wouldn't even get a kit, unless it somehow works out cheaper that way than just buying all the components needed.
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by Larry Mal » Fri May 18, 2018 3:49 pm

Also if you buy the wire, you can get shielded wire and that'll help cut down on the noise. A little hard to work with on the shorter leads, but on the longer ones it can help.

That being said, though, I have bought a pre-wired assembly and it does save some time. Time is something that I basically have none of, so I might consider it again if I had a project on.
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by timtam » Fri May 18, 2018 5:48 pm

I'm not generally a fan of pre-wired harnesses, but the JM parts-only deal (free postage in the US) is not too bad, given that they are CTS pots and there are some odd bits required (roller pots and mounting etc). Probably more expensive than individually sourced parts, but maybe not once you add postage (if they were coming from more than one supplier).

You can find that parts set a bit cheaper (US$49 currently), although maybe not once postage added ? ...
http://www.eyguitarmusic.com/Wiring-Kit ... _2513.html

JM wiring is moderately complex guitar-wise, so by the time you look at the wiring diagram and figure out "OK I need a wire from here to here .. cut the right length to run through the cavities, strip, and solder ... and now one from here to here" etc, you're def looking at over an hour. So for 30 bucks extra for the fully wired harness it's a matter of how much your time is worth and whether you like doing stuff yourself.
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by hpr_hpr » Mon May 21, 2018 12:45 pm

The price for the parts is fair . . . pots are $4-6, the switches the same so that's $24, the rollers run $10 for 2, the jack $2 and say $3-4 for the bracket so call is $45 - 50 retail for the set to buy the individual components . . . so you pay $9 - 14 to avoid the aggravation of having to find the individual components (and you possibly pay for the shipping of those).

If you're reasonably competent with a soldering iron and can read a circuit diagram easily . . . and if you've built an amp you probably are / can . . . I would say it would cost you 45 min - 1.5 hr to put this together depending on how fast you work . . . .
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by Embenny » Mon May 21, 2018 1:31 pm

Asking, "can I wire my own guitar?" when you've built an amp is kinda like asking, "can I learn to play checkers?" when you've already competed in a chess tournament.
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by 601210 » Mon May 21, 2018 9:46 pm

I got a harness instead of wiring it myself, it was about a $20 difference.
mbene085 wrote:
Mon May 21, 2018 1:31 pm
Asking, "can I wire my own guitar?" when you've built an amp is kinda like asking, "can I learn to play checkers?" when you've already competed in a chess tournament.
It's much easier technically, yeah, but one thing that's different is that a guitar moves around a lot compared to an amp. It's less about how good your electrical connections are (or your ability to go from point A to B) and more about your wire organization inside a limited space, making sure everything is tied down and secure, etc. I see tons of people online who enjoy that aspect of making things neat and tidy (especially with pedalboard wiring, too) but my brain is just wired (pun intended) to "If it works, it works" and it takes considerable effort for me to override that.

Basically I'm good at soldering but awful at organizing/being neat, so the $20 to get someone else to do it was worth it to me.

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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by hpr_hpr » Tue May 22, 2018 9:22 am

601210 wrote:
Mon May 21, 2018 9:46 pm
It's much easier technically, yeah, but one thing that's different is that a guitar moves around a lot compared to an amp. It's less about how good your electrical connections are (or your ability to go from point A to B) and more about your wire organization inside a limited space, making sure everything is tied down and secure, etc.
Uhm . . . building a good amp also requires neat and tidy wire organization. And if you have good solder joints the moving around isn't much of a problem I'd think . . . the forces on the wires from moving the guitar (well unless you try and smash it) aren't all that large, and given the space available for them to move it's extremely unlikely that they'll ever 'tear' loose. The taping down is more about having it look great under the guard (which doesn't matter all that much unless you have a transparent guard), possibly preventing rattles (though my not taped down JM does not rattle at all that I can tell) and making it easy to install the guard - the wires fall easily and immediately into the cavities provided - on the guitar. I have a PU wire in my custom wired JM going from the bridge cavity to the upper bout cavity through a custom channel that I did not tape down . . . getting it into it's channel took 5 minutes and some prodding with a screwdriver . . .
Last edited by hpr_hpr on Tue May 22, 2018 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by 601210 » Tue May 22, 2018 9:51 am

hpr_hpr wrote:
Tue May 22, 2018 9:22 am
601210 wrote:
Mon May 21, 2018 9:46 pm
It's much easier technically, yeah, but one thing that's different is that a guitar moves around a lot compared to an amp. It's less about how good your electrical connections are (or your ability to go from point A to B) and more about your wire organization inside a limited space, making sure everything is tied down and secure, etc.
Uhm . . . building a good amp also requires neat and tidy wire organization. And if you have good solder joints the moving around isn't much of a problemI'd think . . . the forces on the wires from moving the guitar (well unless you try and smash it) aren't all that large, and given the space available for them to move it's extremely unlikely that they'll ever 'tear' loose. The taping down is more about having it look great under the guard (which doesn't matter all that much unless you have a transparent guard), possibly preventing rattles (though my not taped down JM does not rattle at all that I can tell) and making it easy to install the guard - the wires fall easily and immediately into the cavities provided - on the guitar. I have a PU wire in my custom wired JM going from the bridge cavity to the upper bout cavity through a custom channel that I did not tape down . . . getting it into it's channel took 5 minutes and some prodding with a screwdriver . . .
Well it's different for everyone, just my experience is that it's easier to get away with a rat's nest on an amp (if you're not building point-to-point) or a pedal than in a guitar. Just getting a tele wired up without having to shove anything into place was a challenge enough for me -- I'm naturally not a very organized person.

I'm not saying it's hard to do, you could probably teach a 12-year old to do it, just that the neatness and convenience of it is worth the small difference to me especially when I'm ordering in all the other parts anyways.

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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by spacecadet » Wed May 23, 2018 10:45 pm

Nothing is difficult if you've got the time and feel like spending the effort.

Me, I'd buy the pre-made harness. (And did, a while ago.)

I don't really see the point in wasting time measuring wire, cutting it, soldering it and making it look all neat and tidy when somebody else has done it for you. That's time better spent playing video games, as far as I'm concerned. Or playing your guitar, if you're so inclined.

YMMV, of course.

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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by wproffitt » Thu May 24, 2018 5:27 pm

So,
I did the math on ordering the same parts myself that one of the companies that builds harnesses uses. It was a $30 difference in cost. I decided that, while I’m more than able to do this for myself, my free time is a bit limited and I’d like to get this guitar I’m putting together off to paint as soon as I get it back from the luthier for its bridge fitting. The $30 is definitely worth it to me here.

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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by spacecadet » Thu May 24, 2018 9:05 pm

Same choice I made for the same reasons. Good luck; it's a fun upgrade.

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Re: Wiring harness: buy or roll my own?

Post by wproffitt » Thu May 31, 2018 5:45 pm

Update! I ordered this last Friday from the good people at 920d Custom and it arrived today. The service was stellar! They had a question about the way I wanted it wired up (I’m using a Tele pickup at the bridge and a PAF at the neck) and they actually called me on the phone! Also, if we factor in shipping, this was *maybe* $20 more than doing it myself with the same components. This is awfully tidy, too, right?

Image

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