Complicated guitar wiring question.

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gorbyrun

Mad Scientist
I am going to rewire my guitar. I have a wiring diagram close to what I want.
http://www.guitarelectronics.com/diagrams/oem/prs1.html

I have purchased a 5 way/4 pole switch but need to make a few mods to that schematic. My humbucking pickups only have three poles on each coil. On both pickups the top coil has poles for the low strings, the bottom coil has poles for the high. Which to me means I want to be sure to pair a top and a bottom.
I would like to wire it as follows:

1. Neck humbucker
2.
3. inner coils in series
4. inner coils parallel
5. Bridge humbucker

For position 2 I'm on the fence. I'm considering...
Neck and Bridge humbuckers together or perhaps an "out of phase" funky position. Any idea's or links appreciated.
 
I recently redid my strat. I went to the same site you did and used their schematics - but I merged a few together and came up with my final design.

So, I might suggest that you print out the one closest to what you want and then just manually edit/remark your final design. If you're this far along, then you sound like someone who can handle this stuff.

The only thing that strikes me strange in the three poles per coil deal. Have you opened the guitar and taken out the humbuckers? and removed the covers? You might have three poles just hidding under the covers.

Wiring suggestion - I have both single and double coil guitars. Since your guitar has the hummers and you can split them, you might work in a single coil setting - That'll really open up your sound to a whole new world! Hum shouldn't be an issue because you'll still have that second magnet sitting right next to the "live" pickup. Not totally single coil - but pretty close!

as a side note - I didn't order my parts from them because I happened to be ordering from Parts Express at the same time and wanted to save on shipping. But the site you linked had excellent prices (cheaper than Parts Express).

Good luck! There's nothing better than one-of-a-kind!
 
Thanks for the reply. I haven't had a chance to open the pickup yet... (It's out getting a new bone nut put on :) ) But, I agree it would be really strange if it turned out to only have 3 poles per coil. The guitar is a mex Telecaster 72 thinline (in case you're curious), and if I have 6 poles per pickup I think you're right and I should go for a single coil position.
I can solder fairly well, and I can read the schematics, but coming up with my own wiring diagram is difficult due to my lack of a fundamental understanding of what the hell's going on. (Not that that's ever stopped me before.) I'm going to try and break my diagram down in an effort to figure out how it works, but if I can't I'm hoping someone here can troubleshoot a diagram for me. I've approached two guitar techs with my plan, both who said it couldn't be done. (The pickups don't have 4 wires, I know you can open the pickup and get the wires you need and how to determine which wire is hot... but if someone tells me they can't do something I'm not going to insist they do something they don't know how to do.)
Anyway, I'm going to try and figure this out... It may be a few weeks before I'm ready to operate. I firmly believe in the Mad Scientist creed, "Better living through reckless experimentation."
 
:mad:

That really burns me when a so-called "expert" tells you something can't be done. It just means they aren't such an expert afterall. I think the other term for these people is "salespeople-that-coundn't-cut-it"

Anyway, I have a mex strat - so I'm somewhat familiar with the lineage.

I'd be happy to look at your schematic. Especially if you show me something off that link as your starting point.

The biggest problem I have with soldering these sorts of parts is melting the plastic on some of the small switches, etc. Leave the leads on the caps/etc. fairly long so you don't melt them either :-) You can connect a "heat sink" to the lead (like a hemostat, aligator clip,etc.) to help protect the component your working on.

Do you have the maple or rosewood neck on yours?
 
I generally don't trust guitar techs as far as they can throw them. I sent an acoustic steel string of mine out for a new bridge once... and it came back with a CLASSICAL bridge on it. I was dumbfounded. The guitar was untunable... totally fucked up and here's this old lady looking at me (as my blood pressure boils) and the guilty party is no where around to incure my wrath. Long story short, I always tell people if you can't meet the tech in person or at least see a wall with certifications on it... your guitar is probably on it's way to some 18 year old, cocky prick who convinced the local mom and pop store they know what they're doing.
Sorry about the venting... but it still makes me mad.

Anyway, it's got a maple neck. :)

Here's a good picture:
http://www.gary-hendershot.com/instruments/FenderJ_Tele-72-Thinline.html

It's not a bad guitar at all. I like the neck a lot (I've always been partial to the tele neck), if I had a complaint, it would be that it doesn't really sound at all like a tele. There's no "quack" or "pop" in the guitar. It sounds like humbuckers. Which is what I wanted (I also have an original 73 tele custom, so I have a good tele sound), but I don't like gigging the tele custom anymore since it took a little damage at a show... so a little rewiring to the mexican tele is the plan.

I feel much more confident the coils can be split since finding this page:
http://www.algonet.se/~lidbjork/72cc/mods.html

Decisions... Decisions... Decisions... I failed to mention that I also got two Fender CTS "no load" pots.... which I could wire to split a humbucker... making things even more complicated. I should have gotten a 12 position switch. :)
 
In case anyone's curious, the deed is done.:D I got a little crazy... I used the 5pole/4throw switch with 2 Fender CTS "no load" pots. I wired the tone control to split the humbuckers. I wound up with:

1) Bridge humbucker.
With tone control on "10", the top coil of the Bridge Pickup.
2) Outer coils parallel.
3) Outer coils series.
With tone control on "10", this position is "off"
4) Inner coils parallel.
With tone control on "10", bottom coil of Neck Pickup.
5) Neck humbucker.

So I now have 8 positions, without any drilling or routing. I am very, very, very, pleased.
 
I am just an electrician, and have never repaired pickups on a guitar, but could not the center pole, be a common for the other two poles? I have seen this many times in small transformers. Just wondering.
 
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "center pole". I pickup usually has one pole per string, these are then tightly wrapped with copper wire. I'm not an exspert on pickup design (or an electrician), but I can tell you they usually have three wires (single coil). One wire is the "start" one the "finish" and the third is connected to the pickup cover and goes to ground. In a humbucking pickup, both coils share this ground. If that's what you mean, then yes, they do.
 
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