The ESP Guitar Company

Rich, can you grab a photo of the wiring in the control cavity?

Tried to get shots where each individual section is clear enough. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me twice! 

Three way switch. I used this one:

Oh, that switch works differently than I expected. And I've found two different wiring diagrams for it, which is confusing. But here's the one that makes the most sense considering they have pins bridged together on the switch https://rigosgarage.medium.com/kaish-heavy-duty-3-way-switch-diagram-and-instructions-17f934003ecc

Based on that, your wiring path looks correct. With the issues you were describing, the first place I'd start is by making sure the ground circuit is solid. I don't see the ground wires from the pickups. I think the lion's share of your problems is that the pickups themselves don't appear to be grounded. Are these old, hard wired EMGs? Are the red wires for the batteries?

If the red wires are for the pickup grounds, or I've been staring at computers too long and am missing them in the photos, here are a few other things to look at:

1) I'd check the black, output wire from the switch to the volume pot. With the way it's bent, I'd be concerned that it might be partly grounding out on the switch.

2) Is the connection from the lug to the top of the two pots just made with a line of solder? If so, I'd suggest replacing it with a small jumper wire, or by bending the lug to physically touch the top of the pot.

3) In general, it looks like your iron may not have been hot enough and/or you were using the wrong type (or gauge) of solder. The ground connections on the top of the pots are always hard to make, and even with a really high quality iron, I end up using a bit of flux to help start connections on the top. If everything else seems to be ok, try to remelt the solder for those connections to have a single, pool of solder and not look like there is a blob of solder connected to another blob of solder. It will help.

 

Okay, this is great information. I'm going to work on the pickup ground line of investigation first. 

The pickups are very old EMGs--

They have these three pin connectors on the bottom that seem like they may be proprietary? I couldn't find much of any information on the pins or the corresponding connector, so I kept that old piece of the wiring. 

The three pin connector has a red that goes to the battery, a white that goes to the switch, and a black that seems to get absorbed into the white. I assume the black was meant to be the ground.

Awesome, thank you for pointing me to that cable! I ordered a couple, and I have no problem redoing portions of the work I didn't get right. 

I am using new 500k pots as I heard they have better tone. What type of solder should I be using, and what is the ideal iron temperature for this type of work?

For the EMGs, 500k pots will make the thing extremely bright, bordering on unusable. That's probably the "distorted" sound you're hearing. Active pickups use a very low impedance circuit, hence 25k instead of 500k.

Here are the 25k pots I use if I have to replace the stock EMG stuff. Alpha doesn't have a great name, but they've worked really well for me. The other option is, you could buy a complete "solderless" solution from EMG and have everything you'd get with a new set. You can buy the pots and wiring here and a solderless switch here. I'm sure there are places you could buy it cheaper than from EMG, but it was the easiest place to go through and find the stuff.

In terms of solder on electrical components (guitar circuits, circuit boards, instrument cables, etc) I use something like this. Heat is a touchy thing, I always start fairly low and increase it until the solder will melt quickly on the iron. To get the solder to melt to the top of a pot, I always end up turning it up. That's why flux helps. I just use the paste stuff that I have with my plumbing kit (which also uses a much bigger diameter solder).

Got the three pin cable today, gonna try resoldering according to the wiring diagram you posted for the Kaish 3-way switch! 

Do I solder the black ground wire on the 3-pin pickup wire to the ground on the switch? 

You can, but the switch ground will also have to connect to the back of the pots and jack. I'd probably put the pickup grounds on the back of the pot and then just run a small jumper wire from the back of the pot to the switch ground.

I resoldered everything when I got the 3pin cables for the pickups. Things are sounding great and I learned a ton from you and redoing all the work over again.

You didn't have to help me but you did and without your guidance I'd have been stuck on some really basic stuff.

I've enjoyed this process so much I think I may look into guitar tech school and change careers in a few years. I've actually fixed other guitars in my possession with what you taught me about the LTD. 

Thank you so much for your time and attention!

Glad it worked out, Rich. Too bad the forum has "gone away," it's hard to come back to find the thread.