Pickup Change Technical Advice

[DuncanCE22]

So hopefully soon I will be ordering a set of the \m/ pickups to go in my CE22, and i just wanted to ask a bit of technical advice. I have looked at some of the wiring diagrams available and it seems to be a daily straight forward swap. the only thing I was wondering is, should I remove the original pickups from the 5 way rotary switch and solder the new ones on or shall I cut the wire of the original ones before it gets to the switch and then join the new pickups to the remaining wire, leaving the original solder on the switches? not sure what would be easiest? I have never changed pickups before but do have a bit of experience in wiring in car audio systems so I'm no stranger to using a soldering iron.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[John Beef]

I would go direct to the rotary. I have de-soldered and re-soldered several times to mine and it's really easy.

 

[rugerpc]

Remove the old wires and solder for the following reasons:

Patching the wires would require soldering anyway (with spaghetti insulators) or those gel solderless connections (not enough room?)

Soldering the patch wires may transmit enough heat to the original solder joints to cause them to fail or become intermittent unless you use adequate heat sinks.

Patching the wires adds another point of impedance (the purist in me).

Cutting the leads on the original pups may make them too short to use in another guitar.

If you know how to solder, what are you afraid of?

 

[bodia]

I agree with both ruger and John. De-solder from the point of connection. IMHO, better than cutting and splicing wires.

 

[The Fight]

+1 ^^^

 

[Huggy Love]

*Always* resolder, if you're wary of messing up the wiring, simply work on each wire and pickup individually and you can't go wrong.
WE BELIEVE IN YOU, FEAR NO GUITAR.

 

[toothace]

^
^
^ What they said

 

[AP515]

I don't like shortening the original leads. It's irritating to have to add wire to a short lead on used pickups. There is no need for it. Just de-solder and re-solder.