MEC Active Pickups - Ground to Bridge?

[Bearfist]

Hi guys, wondering is someone might be able to help me out here?

I recently Picked up a very nice Warwick Thumb on here but i've decided to swap out the passive Barts, old MEC Pre and the pots for a active pair of MEC's, new MEC pre and the correct pots.

Usually i would give this to Mike at Zoot who's just round the corner and does all the work on my basses but i figured its about time i learnt how to do this myself, ive got the pups in, pots/jack in and all i have to do is connect the pre and input jack with the clips to the volume/blend pot then solder the pups and shielding as shown on the wiring diagram to the volume pot.

My question is the old ground wire to the bridge that was connected to the old volume pot, do i need to re connect that as these pickups are active? There is no mention of it that i can see on the wiring diagram.

In the case of this bass the bridge ground wire is a very thick copper wire that connects to 2 other wires attached to screws under each pickup, i really should know this but i don't!

Also one more thing, theres a red wire coming from each pickup, my understanding is this is the wire that connects the power to each pickup? There's a red wire from the preamp (the only one not already connected to something) and the diagram seems to suggest this connects to the 2 pickup wires, do i just attach that to the 2 from the pickup by twisting and taping or is there better way?

Thanks guys!

Edited May 29, 2017 by Bearfist

[Grangur]

Did it come with a wiring diagram?

[dyerseve]

Best to double check on the red wires as the red on my Streamer pre is connected to the positive of the 9V battery. Where is the battery currently connected to?
Re. The ground wire from the bridge, that can be connected to almost any other ground point in the circuit but yes, it does need to connected.

[Bearfist]

Cheers for the reply's guys.

It did come with a diagram and i cant see any reference to any ground other than the shield of the 2 pickups which goes to vol/bal pot and after doing a quick search i was reading things like active pickups don't require the ground wire to the bridge be reconnected so got me wondering if its not mentioned on the diagram?

The battery is currently connected to the pre and there is a second red lead from the pre that looks linked to the red going to the battery, Ive never tried to read one of these diagrams before but i think its suggesting that connects to the 2 pickups, presumably powering them.

I may pop round and see Mike, not sure this set up was the best thing to have a first attempt with.

[Grangur]

Some of us here may not be familiar with the pups and pre that you have, but we are familiar with reading diagrams.

I guess we could Google search MEC circuit diagrams, but we don't know what models you have. You're also just talking about odd wires, not giving us the full picture.

So good, luck with your endeavour. ATM, most here won't be able to help much.

[Bearfist]

Thanks and na no worries, I was gonna stick a picture of the wiring diagram up with the original post but not sure how useful my little pictures i seem to post would have been, was more a general question do active pickups need the bridge grounded (which was very kindly answered above) as i had read several conflicting answers and there was absolutely no mention of that on the supplied information from Warwick.

Anyway all sorted now, feel free to close, bin, remove thanks.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Bearfist