Anyone have a tune-o-matic Powerbridge in their archtop?

[bud]

Sorry, couldn't figure where to post this.

Thinking about putting a powerbridge on my ES-175. Anyone have any experience with this? Looks like I either have to live with a tiny hole through the floating bridge and body or have the wire go in through the lower f-hole.

Any insights are most appreciated.

[tom]

how about a hole in the bridge pu mounting ring? that would only expose an inch or so of the wire.

[ToneLounge]

I had one on a Casino that Bruce installed. He drilled a pin-hole through the bridge/top and ran the wire inside. You could see .125 of wire under the bridge at best.

[bruce]

Hey .124 or .125... whatever it takes right?

[guitarzan]

I remember that Casino. It served us well, TL.

[bud]

great ideas, thanks much. Now to see if I want to try and install it myself. I haven't found the control cavity plate on that guitar yet. Must be there somewhere:p

If not, Bruce will have to work his .001 degree of accuracy magic on it.

[bruce]

The control cavities are a nightmare to find on those models. Maybe when you find it you can snap a picture and post it.

[pipedwho]

When I installed a Graphtech Ghost TOM bridge onto my Schecter C1-Classic, I decided I wanted a factory look to the install. So I used a bass guitar string ferrule to run the six leads from the piezos into the guitar. In this picture I have the bridge raised up fairly high, but when in position, it looks even better.

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/736/07boresightbridge2rs.jpg

The thread is a couple of years old, but I wrote up some of the details of the installation process here:
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/&threadid=1033226 (http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1033226)

The Powerbridge only uses a single output wire for the piezos, but the principle should be the same. The hardest part with the Ghost install was fitting all the electronics and battery into the control cavity. I did get it all in, but for tidyness sake, I ended up routing out a hole in the back of the guitar and installing a battery box so I could keep the control cavity neat. I've shown it to a few people that didn't believe it wasn't part of the original factory build. ;)

[Pietro]

I have found that, if you don't mind using a volume pedal to control the guitar volume, the powerbridge through an external preamp sounds great. When I put one in my US Masters, I installed NO onboard preamp or circuitry, just the stereo jack with the two systems (electric and piezo) wired to it and there's some kind of capacitor or something between them.

It works great and no extra routing or fiddling, in fact, other than drilling a hole INSIDE the guitar between the control cavity and the trem cavity, no modification at all.

I think this is basically what Tom used to do with his Powerbridges. It works, but you can't combine the sounds to one amp without a mixer, which is okay for me, I never do anyway with ANY of my 2-voice guitars.

[sylvanshine]

how about a hole in the bridge pu mounting ring? that would only expose an inch or so of the wire.

That's what I did on my 335 and my Les Paul. In playing position, you can't even see it. Wiring up the 335 is a PITA. I ended up taking it to Charley's to clean up my mess.