My Circuit

This circuit uses a 555 timer as the bases of the touch switch. You can learn more about 555 timers in the Learning section on my site. When the plate is touched the 555 timer is triggered and the output on pin 3 goes high turning on the LED and the buzzer for a certain period of time. The time that the LED and the buzzer is on is based on the values of the capacitor and resistor connected to pin 6 & 7. The 10M resistor on pin 2 causes the the circuit to be very sensitive to the touch.

You will, no doubt, remember the post where I cleaned out all the electronics on our vintage Hofner Colorama II guitar (http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2011/12/hofner-colorama-ii-restoration-project_12.html). Previously I wasn’t getting any sound from the bridge pickup, but considering this… … was the volume pot for that particular pickup, I was hopeful that after cleaning it out with contact cleaner, the sound would come back. However, after plugging the whole thing in, it became apparent that there was another problem. The (working) neck pickup measures a very healthy 4.9kohms. And this is the bridge pickup: Which is my multi-meter’s way of saying infinity ohms (or in other words a completely dead pickup). Well, I did say a long time ago that part of the reason I was doing this restoration was to learn new things. I guess this latest problem might as well go in there too, so today's (unplanned) blog post will be about how to repair/rewire/rewind a guitar pickup. After quite a bit of...