I have an Ibanez GSR105 with some of the wires connecting the knobs to the output jack/pickups disconnected, if any of you know where on the knobs the wires go and/or how to reattach them, I'd highly appreciate the info.
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Knob Wiring Came Undone
- Thread starter revelocience
- Start date
The ends of the wires circled in the pic look “clean”, as if they were never connected to anything. 
They had been, it worked well for at least a year, I think they got pulled off when the knobs loosened after a while, they'd rotate too much sometimes and I guess it pulled the wire offThe ends of the wires circled in the pic look “clean”, as if they were never connected to anything.
Do you know how to solder and have access to a soldering iron?
I’m not uh-hundred% sure, but from what I can tell from the pic…The loose white wires appear to be hot (as opposed to ground). I believe the wire in your hand should be soldered to the center lug on the volume pot. The other wire should be soldered to a lug on the tone pot, but I can’t see which one in the pic.
I found this wiring diagram at Ibanez.com. The GSR105 is not listed. This is for a GSR100 but it looks the same as your picture. If you have little experience with solder, it's not easy...especially working in a small space like you have. You may want to take this to a reliable tech and learn to solder on a different project.
GSR 100: http://www2.ibanez.com/supportResources/wiring/2006/WB050009.pdf
GSR 100: http://www2.ibanez.com/supportResources/wiring/2006/WB050009.pdf
I didn't realize it was a big problem at the time, it still functioned well. I've one bass for two years and this one for one year, so I'm still relatively new to some of the physically technical bits. Not a mistake I'll make again though, you live and you learn
Thanks for the tip. I've never soldered before, I'll look around for a repair guy
I'm not quite 100% sure from the photo exactly where each wire should go, but it is clearly a simple passive volume/tone circuit with 500K pots. Basically some variant on P-bass layout which is just about as simple as a wiring harness can get.
Should be a pretty elementary job for any tech.
Should be a pretty elementary job for any tech.
Okay, so going by that one photo, above (not real easy to see certain things), solder the wire that's in your hand (you're still holding onto it, right?
) to the center lug of the volume pot, and the other white wire (the one from the pickup)gets soldered to the lug with the red wire soldered to it, also on the volume pot. Having the hot lead of the output jack on the wiper of the volume control (on a single pickup bass like yours) is the correct way to wire it up.The blue trace you added to the photo is obscuring things a bit, so this is partly a guess.
Okay, so going by that one photo, above (not real easy to see certain things), solder the wire that's in your hand (you're still holding onto it, right?
The blue trace you added to the photo is obscuring things a bit, so this is partly a guess.
Sorry about that, that was to show that the white one connects to black one, since the red covers where they connect. Here they are in closer detail:
Sure looks to me like the "hot" white lead from the pickup and the white lead to the "tip" on the output jack both connected to the center lug on the volume pot. There is obviously a failed connection there.
How would that work? That would simply bypass the volume control, altogether.
Regardless, something does look a bit off, here.
From what I can tell from the new pics, the white wire coming from the pickup should be soldered to the center lug on the tone pot, where there is already has a white wire (protruding from red insulation) connected.
Putting both white wires on the center terminal of the volume pot would not bypass the volume control. Turning the volume pot down would decrease the resistance between the center terminal and the grounded outside terminal, which would ground the pickup output, and turn the bass off when fully turned down.
Turning the volume control up would increase the resistance between the center term & the outside grounded term, and reduce the resistance to the other outside term of the vol pot, which is connected to the tone pot. When fully turned up, the center term of the vol pot is shorted to the outside term connected to the tone pot, allowing the tone pot to provide a path to ground through the capacitor.
I still can't see for sure whether one of the wires got torn off from the #3 lug on the volume pot (the one with the white wire going in to the red sleeve). That would be where I would attach the output lead if I were rewiring (there or the center lead on the tone pot - same difference).
That doesn't necessarily mean that's how the factory did it. I haven't seen pickup "hot" & output leads on both volume lug #2 in my limited experience, but it should still work. (It might isolate the tone circuit more as you turn the volume down, but you'd still get some of the effect and "loading" from the volume pot would dull things at lower settings.)
That doesn't necessarily mean that's how the factory did it. I haven't seen pickup "hot" & output leads on both volume lug #2 in my limited experience, but it should still work. (It might isolate the tone circuit more as you turn the volume down, but you'd still get some of the effect and "loading" from the volume pot would dull things at lower settings.)