foreign material on the wiring?

Updated
foreign material on the wiring?

Any idea what the white stuff is on the wiring leading to the battery compartment? Would this be remnants of a leaked battery? the rest of the cavity is clean.

Pushead

Looks like part of the wire casing is flaking off.  I suspect it's the wire and not a battery issue.

Guiguitarz

Yep, because ESP bought the battery compartment already wired. And then, they use their own wires and the quality is not the same actually ...

We should make them aware of that.

Maybe a moisture/dry issue.

Sephiroth

It doesn't wipe off like a powder. It's hard. It's with a guitar tech at the moment and when I sent him the pic before he got the guitar he said he hadn't seen that on wiring before. Battery looked like it had never leaked, but the guitar has spent the majority of its time overseas in Shanghai China, and Malaysia so maybe a moisture issue. the other cables are unaffected though so it just seems strange.

ESP Admin

Any idea what the white stuff is on the wiring leading to the battery compartment? Would this be remnants of a leaked battery? the rest of the cavity is clean.

 

We are not certain what this substance is and have not seen it before. We recommend removing it with a cleaning cloth or duster/pressurized air can, etc. It does not look like remnants of a leaky battery. However, if there is any issue with your battery leaking or corrosion on the other end of the battery wire at the snap, then it would be good to have those wires replaced. From what we can tell from this photo, it does not appear to be anything to be concerned about.

ESP 348

Hello friends,

I showed this pic of Sepirhoth's KH-20 around to some electrican and auto electrican friends and they all asked if the affected black and red wires were going to some form of power source lol.

Yep, good guess boys! I told them this wiring was from a guitar, but none of them knew these guitars use 9v batteries to power the EMGs. These guys were actually surprised to hear that some guitars actually require batteries to make them work lol.

They all said that white hard crap on the wiring is heat related, but rather odd as it's only 9v of battery power and it shouldn't be doing that. They normally see this from 240v electronic stuff we have here in Australia. They said that white stuff is the outer coating of the wiring getting hot and it's like a form of 'oxidizing' on the outer coating of the wiring that happens before the wiring gets to a point where it's very hot and starts to bubble the outer casing on the wiring before the wiring actually melts.

They only thing they can think of is that it's really cheap "Chinese" wiring. I laughed and told them these were US $10K guitars when new and are still asking that money and more these days lol.

I was a little paranoid that my KH-20 would have the same crap on it so I pulled it out to check it and found that was not the case.

The wiring in mine is still like brand new, but..............I received my KH-20 in brand new unplayed condition. I removed the plastic off the battery and fit the battery to the guitar so I could plug it in and played it for a few minutes before removing the battery from the guitar. That was the only time it was ever plugged into to play, a few other times I have had it out and strummed it on the couch for a few minutes before putting it away again.

Perhaps mine hasn't been played enough to get enough heat into that wiring to make it oxidize like Big Daddy's and Sephiroth's guitars.

All interesting stuff and I am almost tempted to replace the wiring with quality stuff now before it becomes an issue, but I might just leave it original for the time being.

I took some pics, I still can't upload them so I might have Sephiroth upload the pics of me if he can.

Sephiroth

Just you wait till you play yours Pap...... haha. The guitar tech replaced mine just like Big daddy had his replaced.

Below are ESP348's pics of his KH-20 wiring.

ESP 348

Haha, you are probably right mate. As soon as I start to play it the wiring will melt and my guitar will catch on fire.

Thanks heaps for sharing my pics mate, I still don't know what is going on in regard to the uploading of my photos here on the forum. :(

ESP 348

What!!! My KH-20 is used goods now!!

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