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Author Topic:  Ground???
Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 8 Nov 2017 7:10 am    
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I have an older model MSA Super Sustain pick up with a black lead and a green lead coming off,,,,how can I know which one is ground? (I admit it,,,I'm a dummy!!!)
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Carl Kilmer


From:
East Central, Illinois
Post  Posted 8 Nov 2017 8:06 am    
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Usually Green is used to indicate the ground or negative wire.
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Mike Wheeler


From:
Delaware, Ohio, USA
Post  Posted 8 Nov 2017 10:53 am    
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Sonny, black is the most common color for ground in the electronics world. In the case of your pickup, black represents ground.

In the world of electricians, green is ground and black is hot.

The two are often confused.
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Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 8 Nov 2017 5:08 pm    
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I hooked up green to ground and it seems to work,,,,
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Glenn Demichele


From:
(20mi N of) Chicago Illinois, USA
Post  Posted 8 Nov 2017 8:43 pm    
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On a pickup, sometimes they're interchangeable. One way to see is take an ohmmeter to see if either wire has a low resistance to anything else, like your endplate, the ground shield of a guitar cord plug into the steel, or maybe the shield of a wire coming off a pot.
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Jim Palenscar

 

From:
Oceanside, Calif, USA
Post  Posted 9 Nov 2017 7:20 am    
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If it is a single neck or just one pickup it doesn't matter.
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Jim Sliff


From:
Lawndale California, USA
Post  Posted 14 Nov 2017 9:00 pm    
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They are interchangeable only if there is no ground connection between the pickup and chassis *and/or* shielding around the pickup in addition to the two leads to the jack.

If either of those exist test the contacts at the jack with a multimeter to determine which is the ground - or contact the manufacturer.

In the pickup world there is absolutely NO "usually". Among several dozen pickup makers there is every color-switching code/scheme imaginable. Green...or black...could be ground or hot. and with 4-lead pickups it could be a coil connection between the pickups.
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