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How to Make a Test Plug for an Electric Guitar

Well-played electric guitars require periodic maintenance, and surprisingly, thorough diagnostics can be done without removing strings or a single screw. Diagnosing things like noisy pots can be done by ear, but you can get a detailed picture of the internal workings with just a multimeter and a standard 1/4-inch mono phone plug. With a few enhancements to the phone plug, testing jobs are simplified as you create reliable points to attach test probes.

Things You'll Need

  • 1/4-inch mono phone plug
  • 4-inch length of wire, preferably red
  • 10-inch length of wire with a plug or pin to fit your multimeter at one end, preferably black
  • Wire strippers
  • Soldering supplies
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Instructions

    • 1

      Remove the cover from the phone plug. Strip about 1/4 inch of insulation from both ends of the short wire, and from the bare end of the long wire. Tin all bare wire ends with solder.

    • 2

      Place the plug cover over the long wire. Solder the bare end of the long wire to the ground arm on the plug. If the arm has strain relief clamps, crimp those over the wire after soldering. Solder the short wire to the tip point on the plug. Feed the short wire through the plug cover and screw it onto the plug to protect your solder points.

    • 3

      Connect the long wire to the negative connector of your multimeter. The short wire will be used for a positive test point in some tests and not used in others. Connect the plug to the guitar jack, and you're ready to get testing.

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