Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Pickups, Diy Electronics, Stompboxes, Guitar wiring...
Paul Lafountaine
Posts: 332
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:06 am
Location: Northern Ontario

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Paul Lafountaine »

Glad to hear the pickup is working. Yes as you bring the pickup closer to the strings you will get more volume. 1/8 inch gap between the strings and pickup is around the average distance most people on the forum like. As for measuring the resistance of the tone and volume pots they should be measured out of the circuit for best results I have found. Remove the cap from the tone pot to do this. Baically seperate each component from the other. The pots and cap are quite old and I would replace them if you want to use the volume and tone controls on the guitar. Personally, I just use the controls on the amp. I am a set it and forget it kinda fella. Pots and caps are reasonably cheap here so I would replace them. I would buy a few differant value pots and caps. For pots, I would look at 50, 100, 200, 250, and even 500 K ohm pots. As for caps I would look at .01, .033, .047 up to 1.0 micro farad caps. First, pickup, to volune, to amp. See which value is confortable to you for volume control. Then do the tone control circuit. Start with say 50K ohm and various caps. Then move to the next pot and swap out caps again and so on. Follow the diagram I posted to you till you find what you like. Once again please post your results as I like to see if any of this was helpful.

Paul

If you have any questions, I will do my best to help you out.
Tenderness46
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Tenderness46 »

Paul Lafountaine wrote:Glad to hear the pickup is working. Yes as you bring the pickup closer to the strings you will get more volume. 1/8 inch gap between the strings and pickup is around the average distance most people on the forum like. As for measuring the resistance of the tone and volume pots they should be measured out of the circuit for best results I have found. Remove the cap from the tone pot to do this. Baically seperate each component from the other. The pots and cap are quite old and I would replace them if you want to use the volume and tone controls on the guitar. Personally, I just use the controls on the amp. I am a set it and forget it kinda fella. Pots and caps are reasonably cheap here so I would replace them. I would buy a few differant value pots and caps. For pots, I would look at 50, 100, 200, 250, and even 500 K ohm pots. As for caps I would look at .01, .033, .047 up to 1.0 micro farad caps. First, pickup, to volune, to amp. See which value is confortable to you for volume control. Then do the tone control circuit. Start with say 50K ohm and various caps. Then move to the next pot and swap out caps again and so on. Follow the diagram I posted to you till you find what you like. Once again please post your results as I like to see if any of this was helpful.

Paul

If you have any questions, I will do my best to help you out.
Thanks, Paul. I'll keep you informed of how I'm getting on.
Tenderness46
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Tenderness46 »

Paul Lafountaine wrote:Glad to hear the pickup is working. Yes as you bring the pickup closer to the strings you will get more volume. 1/8 inch gap between the strings and pickup is around the average distance most people on the forum like. As for measuring the resistance of the tone and volume pots they should be measured out of the circuit for best results I have found. Remove the cap from the tone pot to do this. Baically seperate each component from the other. The pots and cap are quite old and I would replace them if you want to use the volume and tone controls on the guitar. Personally, I just use the controls on the amp. I am a set it and forget it kinda fella. Pots and caps are reasonably cheap here so I would replace them. I would buy a few differant value pots and caps. For pots, I would look at 50, 100, 200, 250, and even 500 K ohm pots. As for caps I would look at .01, .033, .047 up to 1.0 micro farad caps. First, pickup, to volune, to amp. See which value is confortable to you for volume control. Then do the tone control circuit. Start with say 50K ohm and various caps. Then move to the next pot and swap out caps again and so on. Follow the diagram I posted to you till you find what you like. Once again please post your results as I like to see if any of this was helpful.

Paul

If you have any questions, I will do my best to help you out.
Hello again, Paul. Once I had found the pickup worked all right, I couldn't make more noise, because it was early hours in the morning, but the next day or the one after I sat down with it in the early afternoon and discovered what a beautiful and full tone this guitar has. Only two objections to be made: one was the first string sounded noticeably quieter, thinner and with less sustain than the others. The other was a hum that happened when I touched the pickup cover, or even the casing of the amp. Last night, again until maybe six in the morning, I cut off six little pieces of thin flat plastic that matched the shape and size of the DeArmond pickup out of an empty ice cream container. Then I held them together and evened the edges out rubbing them against a piece of sandpaper. Then I drilled two holes through each one of them, using a tool that the cobblers use to drill holes in a belt. In Spanish we call it sacabocados. I also cut a bit off each piece, for the wire to go through. I thought it was a good idea to use six pieces of thin plastic, so I could use any amount between one and six, but then I found that all six could go under the pickup and together they raise it by approximately 1.5 to 2.00 mm. I tried the guitar again this morning after having raised the pickup and now the first string seems to sound all right, maybe very slightly quieter than the others, but not very noticeably, and there's not a dramatic difference in tone or sustain between that string and the others. Also, miraculously the hum has disappeared, so I was happy as Larry. I think the difference in volume between strings may be due to the string set that came on the guitar; I think they're just normal D'Addario EX110s for regular Spanish guitar, so tuned to A, as the guitar is right now, the first string is too lose for a lap steel. As for controls, I think that I may as well leave it as it is, specially since I bought this guitar meaning to run it through a volume pedal, so onboard controls are not as necessary. Still I happen to have two unused aftermarket Fender 250K pots, each one with its capacitor, so I might just install those and see how it goes. Or maybe somewhere down the line I will do some further experimentation, as you suggest. What happens is, although I am in this forum, I'm far from being a guy who enjoys spending time building or even fixing guitars. I just do it when I badly need to, if I think I can handle the job. In this case I bought a steel guitar to work on the Leavitt tuning, using Mike Ihde's books, and when this supposedly working guitar came all the way from the USA I found it actually didn't work. Still I thought an old Harmony with a DeArmond pickup would be worth keeping and getting fixed, but really I had never meant to buy a project guitar, just a working one, to start playing right away.
Paul Lafountaine
Posts: 332
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:06 am
Location: Northern Ontario

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Paul Lafountaine »

Hey Buddy,

You are almost there. Sounds like a grounding problem. you must grounf the pick up and bridge. PM me your number and I will talk you through it if you are unsre of what i meam.
Tenderness46
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Tenderness46 »

Paul Lafountaine wrote:Hey Buddy,

You are almost there. Sounds like a grounding problem. you must grounf the pick up and bridge. PM me your number and I will talk you through it if you are unsre of what i meam.
I think I know what you mean, Paul. I post a diagram from Seymour Duncan I found on the web, in which a wire goes from the bridge to the casing of a pot. Since I have no working pots installed at the moment and the pickup is wired straight to the jack, I think I should add a wire from the sleeve connection at the jack to the bridge. What happens is that, for unknown reasons, since I added the plastic pieces under the pickup, there's no hum, no buzzing, no problems. Feels like paradise, just tons of full beautiful tone, like a dream. That's what makes me reluctant to keep fiddling about with it, following the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
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Paul Lafountaine
Posts: 332
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:06 am
Location: Northern Ontario

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Paul Lafountaine »

I'm happy that you have it working and you are pleased with your guitar. If you search the net you should be able to find the proper string gauge for what ever tuning you chose to use, but they are likely in Doug's book anyway. Enjoy your new found toy.

Paul
Tenderness46
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Tenderness46 »

Paul Lafountaine wrote:I'm happy that you have it working and you are pleased with your guitar. If you search the net you should be able to find the proper string gauge for what ever tuning you chose to use, but they are likely in Doug's book anyway. Enjoy your new found toy.

Paul
Thanks, Paul. I'm doing it. As for gauges, I was thinking that a C6 set can probably do a good job for the Leavitt tuning I wanted this guitar for. It goes C#, E, G, Bb, C, D, low to high, and I have never heard of string sets specifically made for it, but it's so close to C6 that I expect the same set to work for both. And back to the control circuit, I was thinking this evening that, now the guitar sounds all right and I see that with just the pickup the sound is beautiful and there are no issues, I can always go back to this arrangement whenever I want to, so it would be safe to do some experimentation. I think I told you at some point that I have at home a couple of unused aftermarket 250K Fender pots with their caps, so I think I will install them and see how they work. If they do the job and I'm happy enough with them, I may leave them there, because, as you said about yourself, I tend not to fiddle about a lot with the controls anyway. Or I can order some other with different values, as you also suggested, to see if they make me happier. As a rule of the thumb, I'm always reluctant to change parts, unless it's necessary. I never do it "just to check", only if they stop working, but since in this guitar the pots, one or both seem to be wrong, it may be my chance to learn a bit about pots and caps. I guess in the end it will all depend on how busy I am with other things.

I would like to thank you again for your advice, that was instrumental to see that my guitar is basically functional and has a lovely tone, which gave me a real boost when I was getting a bit down about it.
Tenderness46
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Tenderness46 »

Paul Lafountaine wrote:Let us know how that works out for you. The process of elimination can tell a lot.

Paul

Hello again, Paul. Since you asked me to let you know how your suggestions worked out, I will update you with the news. Last night I decided that, after having checked, as I already told you, that the guitar pickup works nicely, and also having checked with a multimeter that both pots work fine too and the wires that came in the guitar, seemingly original, show no issues either, the problem this guitar had must have been wrong wiring in a way or another. After I had checked the pickup connected straight to the output jack, I tried it again with the wiring the guitar came with, just to get the same problems I was getting when it came: very low volume, loud buzzing and no tone control. As I told you, I was tempted to leave it without any internal controls, but thinking that, if a number of working components put together don't work it had to be because they were put together the wrong way, I got in touch with the Harmony company, in another attempt to get the original schematic. The current management sent me a kind reply explaining some details about the history of the model, when and where it was made and so on, and also that they don't know if there are original schematics for such an old model. They suggested that I would try to find it on the web, or ask the owner of a working example to draw the diagram for me.

So unable to get the original diagram, I decided to try the one you once sent me. I used leftover wire I had from previous repair jobs on other guitars, to avoid abusing the original wires. I also used a leftover capacitor I had, but I used the original pots. The minute I plugged it in with the new configuration I could tell there was no buzzing, the volume was normal when set on full, and the volume pot worked fine. It was early hours in the morning again, so I couldn't be noisy. In the quick test I made the tone pot didn't seem to do much. When I got up today and tried it thoroughly, I found that the tone control DOES A LOT! As you turn it down, it gives you a very nice variety of tones, from bright to dark, with very sweet sounding things in between. Those darker tones seem to work ever so nicely when you overdrive the amp. I'm very happy I decided to try, because otherwise I would have been living in a three story house, using only the ground floor.

And now that I know that the pickup is fully functional and so are the original pots, I will try replacing the new wire with the original one, to keep the guitar as original as possible, since I know that wire is fine. I will also try the original cap, since knowing that something was wrong with the wiring, there's the chance that all the components might be fine. Otherwise I will go back to the cap I installed last night, because it does a hell of a job.

And as for a ground wire, this guitar doesn't seem to ever have had one. There's no hole connecting the control cavity with the bridge, and the way it is wired now it doesn't buzz at all whether I'm touching the metal parts or not. Really it is VERY usable the way it works now, but for the sake of leaving it as original as possible, as long as it does the job, I will try with the original wire and capacitor.

Once again, the info coming from you has supplied the solution I was needing, and therefore I would like to express my gratitude once again. Thank you ever so much, Paul, for your extremely helpful disposition and your commitment with my repair job. I don't even know you and I class you as a friend.
Paul Lafountaine
Posts: 332
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:06 am
Location: Northern Ontario

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Paul Lafountaine »

Hi Alberto,

Thank you for the complments. I am glad I was able to help you and that you are enjoying your guitar. I understand how you feel about keeping the guitar as original as possible. A few years back, I purchased an old pedal steel guitar that was a built by someone many years ago and it was in rough shape. I rebuilt it as origional as possible and enjoyed it. I have enjoyed helping you and hope the guitar brings you great pleasure.

I have attached a schematic of a 50's harmony guitar that may be of interest to you. If you have any more questions please post. People here on the forum are great and are as helpful as can be as I have found.

Take care my friend and keep on posting,

Paul
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Tenderness46
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: Harmony H601. Help with the wiring.

Post by Tenderness46 »

Paul Lafountaine wrote:Hi Alberto,

Thank you for the complments. I am glad I was able to help you and that you are enjoying your guitar. I understand how you feel about keeping the guitar as original as possible. A few years back, I purchased an old pedal steel guitar that was a built by someone many years ago and it was in rough shape. I rebuilt it as origional as possible and enjoyed it. I have enjoyed helping you and hope the guitar brings you great pleasure.

I have attached a schematic of a 50's harmony guitar that may be of interest to you. If you have any more questions please post. People here on the forum are great and are as helpful as can be as I have found.

Take care my friend and keep on posting,

Paul
Thank you again, Paul. You're a star!
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