New B.C. Rich NT Virgin Bass Problems w/Schematic!

[SgtBFGunner]

Had a bad case of GAS and ordered a new Made In China (hey, that's all I could find!) B.C. Rich Neck Through Virgin Bass... In my opinion, there are electrical problems with it right out of the box. Could not find any schematics on the ol Interwebz, so I put a primitive one together using MS Paint. I'm not an guitar technician nor do I play one on TV so please take this schematic with a grain of salt. (Any corrections, please advise and I will update it.)

As standard for B.C. Rich, the first pot is the Bridge Volume, middle pot is the Neck Volume and last pot is Master Tone. Pickup selector switch is up for Neck, middle for Both and down for Bridge. The three little toggle switches are suspect... first is for phase apparently, second is for the neck pickup (parallel/series? coil tap?) and third is for the bridge pickup (parallel/series? coil tap?) apparently (according to the wiring).

Check the Ohms reading on the pickups using the instrument cable method... Bridge reads 6.41 and Neck reads between 3.27 and 3.44... (That should be a solid reading like the bridge I assume, but it wanders a bit at each reading).

Troubles with the bass include:
1. Very low output from the Neck Pickup.
2. An apparent switch to the Neck Pickup with very low output when flipping the Bridge mini toggle.
3. If I use the Selector Switch to choose the Bridge Pickup, audio goes out completely with Bridge mini toggle down. Mini toggle Phase and Neck Pickups seem to work at changing tone.
4. Neck Volume pot goes from silent to low and then down to quiet at full turn.
5. If Bridge Volume pot is turned all the way down, it kills off audio for entire bass, Neck Pickup included (even though the Neck Pickup Volume is turned way up).

I can not find any schematics for the wiring or other info on the pickups. They look like Seymour Duncan Music Man type of design pickups.

Pickup wiring:
Red
Green
Black
White
Exposed shielding braided wire

I see some pickup schematics with the black wire as the power, green & shield, red &white combined for ohm testing. This bass combines black and the shield wire together paired with white and then red and green paired on opposite sides of the mini toggles.

This is a purchase to the USA from Austrailia (I know, I know... But I wanted a brand new in the box B.C. Rich Virgin Bass for messing around with those KISS songs...) and easily overpaid between the price of the bass and shipping. Not sure how to handle exchanges at the moment, so looking to see if I can figure out what's wrong.

After looking and schematiciing and thinking and pondering, my brain hurts.

Looking to see if anyone can see a wiring problem in that schematic???

Thank you! -Gary

 

[line6man]

Problem 5 is caused by the way that you have chosen to wire the volume pots. You have the center terminals wired as outputs, which means that each pot controls the output impedance for the entire signal. Some people prefer this wiring because the taper is better, but if you don't like it, then swap the inputs and outputs on the volume pots.

One issue that I see is that you have the shielding on the bridge pickup connected to the phase switch. It should go directly to ground, because you don't want the shielding being hot when the phase is inverted. At best, it causes the bass to buzz, and at worst, it kills the output for the pickup.

 

[SgtBFGunner]

The schematic above is what was present in the bass right from BC Rich, brand new out of the box... Unless you were referring at my attempt to piece together a "proper" wiring... (Which I deleted because I thought the original should work and missed your comment.) "Proper" schematic attached. This was pieced together from info from 1728.com.
As the bass is new, I can't really touch it until I get the music store's decision on it's disposition. I'm chomping at the bit to remove all the controls from the body and get to work with a solder gun.
I appreciate the expertise!

 

[SgtBFGunner]

I learn something new every day...
"3 terminals are facing you, the ground will be on your left hand side, the input to the potentiometer will be on the right, and the output is in the middle".
So with that said, In the BC Rich schematic, isn't it odd that the output to the jack is coming from the ground tab on the pot? Plus that ground tab on the tone pot is also connected to the input on the three way selector switch?

Shouldn't the .047 be on the ground tab, the selector switch on the input tab and the output jack on the output tab?
It's so bizarre that the factory would have wired this wrong...
Also, regarding schematics, the pots are a view from the back. I should probably remove the nut from the image.

 

[line6man]

That is not how you wire a tone pot. You only use two of the three terminals. One is both an input and an output, and the other connects to the capacitor.

Your diagram shows the pots as if you are looking down on the shafts, but you should really be wiring as if you are looking down at the chassis. That is the way that all wiring diagrams are done. If you treat it like you are looking down at the chassis of each pot, then the diagrams are correct as shown.

 

[SgtBFGunner]

That is not how you wire a tone pot. You only use two of the three terminals. One is both an input and an output, and the other connects to the capacitor.

Your diagram shows the pots as if you are looking down on the shafts, but you should really be wiring as if you are looking down at the chassis. That is the way that all wiring diagrams are done. If you treat it like you are looking down at the chassis of each pot, then the diagrams are correct as shown.

Thanks I will update them. See I learned something else now and it's only an hour and a half into a new day.

 

[SgtBFGunner]