Custom Guitar Wiring - H/S/S 1V,1T, 5-way(4pole)???

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WERNER 1

WERNER 1

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Hey guys, I've got a quesiton in regards to guitar wiring...

I'm redoing my 50th Ann. strat with an H/S/S set up. with one volume and one tone plus a 4 pole 5-way.

My goal is to have the 5-way set up basically normal, but with position #3 (Middle position) I want to have my full humbucker and the neck pup combined. I've found some diagrams that show this to some degree, but they all end up spliting the humbucker.......I don't want that.

I'm pretty sure on the actual wiring of the 5-way, but I'm still not sure where the hot and ground come out it.

Any info or suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated..

By the way, I'm going with an Evolution in the bridge, and texas specials in the mid, and neck positions. (I sold my Lindy Fralin Vintage hots...)

Thanks,
Rick
 
The easiest way to do it will be to use one pole for each of the three pickups. So, you would hook the neck pickup to possitions 1,2, 3 on one pole; the middle pickup to 2 and 4 on another pole; and the bridge pickup to 3, 4, 5 on a third pole. The other pole would be unused, and you can tie the commons for your three poles to one another. The ground would go to whatever you are using as a ground point (or buss, or however you are doing it).



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thanks for the reply!!!!...........I was beginning to wonder if anyone would respond to this.........or if anyone actually knew much about wiring....

So, if I just bridge the hot lead from the humbucker across 3 of the luggs of one pole, then I should get the full humbucker when each of the 3 luggs is selected correct? This is the way I thought it was supposed to work, but on like Guitar Electronics.com they have the exact set up I want, but with the humbucker being split in positions 2 & 3 (Bridge+Mid / Bridge+Neck)......which I don't want.......well at least on pos. 3.

Ok, I'm still a bit confused on the whole ground / hot issue...

I understand that the hot is coming from each pickup, but do I only need one Hot "out" to the Vol. pot??........by that I mean I don't have to connect the 6th lug of each "Pole" that is being used - Daisychaining them from one to another -(4 poles on this particular switch..), I can just pick one of the lugs and take it to the pot?? I believe that you are describing the 6th lug as each poles "Common"?? In which case I would need to connect all of the used commons together and then run one lead to the pot. (??) :)



I'm totally lost on the "Ground" ........how does that figure into the equation?? I've got foil running under the pickguard, and shielding paing in the elect. cavity of the guitar (Came stock that way from Fender..).......If I need to ground the switch, where to I connect it to this switch? (Fender Super Switch)??

Thanks again!!!

Rick
 
WERNER 1 said:
I understand that the hot is coming from each pickup, but do I only need one Hot "out" to the Vol. pot??........by that I mean I don't have to connect the 6th lug of each "Pole" that is being used - Daisychaining them from one to another -(4 poles on this particular switch..), I can just pick one of the lugs and take it to the pot?? I believe that you are describing the 6th lug as each poles "Common"?? In which case I would need to connect all of the used commons together and then run one lead to the pot. (??) :)
Click to expand...



Yeah, the sixth lug is the common. Daisy chain those together and run from there to the volume pot. If you want to split the coil on the humbucker, just use the fourth pole to hook the tap to ground.




WERNER 1 said:
I'm totally lost on the "Ground" ........how does that figure into the equation?? I've got foil running under the pickguard, and shielding paing in the elect. cavity of the guitar (Came stock that way from Fender..).......If I need to ground the switch, where to I connect it to this switch? (Fender Super Switch)??

Thanks again!!!

Rick
Click to expand...

The switch doesn't need to be grounded. The only reason the switch would have a ground wire on it would be if you were going to split a coil (well, or if you wanted to do a series parrallel thing). The easiest way (and the most common on guitars, though certainly not the BEST way) is to run all the grounds from your pickups to the back of a pot, and to run a wire between all of the pot bodies. You also need to ground one of the outside lugs of your volume pot, and there is also a ground involved with the tone pot. There also needs to be a ground wire run to your output jack, and your bridge.

The shield is not ground. The shield needs to be grounded, but that happens mechanically when you put everything together, and you don't need to worry about it.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
You could just swap the bridge pickup wire and middle pickup wire on the 5 position switch. Then the humbucker could be run together with either of the single coil pickups.
 
I have a H/S/H setup with my strat.
A five way switch operates as normal (Bridge, bridge middle, middle, middle neck, neck) and I installed two push-pull pots in the two tone pots.
One push-pull splits the two humbuckers. The other engages the neck pickup regardless of the switch position. I could have added another push-pull in the volume for separate neck/bridge splitting, but I found I don't need that.
This was a very simple wiring and gave me plenty of options beyond the switch. Most fun is all three pickups at once (master tone) or all three as single coil.
My recommendation would be installing push-pull pots, unless you specifically want the switch to do the job... the PPP would give you a few more options.
I need to run. Let me know if you have questions about how the P-P are wired up.
 
Thanks for all of the great replys!!

I'm going to stick with the 5-way set up with pos. #3/middle being the Bridge+Neck....... I have it this way in my other guitars as well (Jackson soloist and Kramer Striker 300ST........ I'm trying to make everything the same on these as to be equally familier when I'm playing out and have to switch one out for the other....

I just thought of another question though....

Since I'm using a couple of Fender Texas Specials in the middle and neck positions, do I need to reverse the leads of the Dimarzio Evolution?? I bellieve I do......so the Hot would actually be the Ground, and the normal ground wire would be come the hot.(yes?) :)

Thanks agian guys!!!

I'll post some pics when it's all up and running....

Rick
 
If you reverse the leads the pickup will be out of phase and it will be thin and weak sounding.
 
Typically I believe that you are right, but in the case of the Texas Specials, I believe that the humbucker needs to be reversed to correct the out of phase effect......(yes/no??)

It seems like I had to do this a couple of years ago when I switched pups in one of my other guitars...

Rick

Hey, how'd I get up to 11 rep points??? :confused:......:D I've been at three for like 2 years

:cool:
 
WERNER 1 said:
Since I'm using a couple of Fender Texas Specials in the middle and neck positions, do I need to reverse the leads of the Dimarzio Evolution?? I bellieve I do......so the Hot would actually be the Ground, and the normal ground wire would be come the hot.(yes?) :)

Rick
Click to expand...



No, you shouldn't have to. Not unless they are wiring them wierd, which I don't remember them doing. Hopfully, the middle pickup is a reverse wind/reverse polarity. It would still be in phase, but would be noise canceling with the neck pickup.

But no, you shouldn't need to reverse anything.

But if you want to try it, go ahead. It's not like it is hard to undo.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Well I went ahead and wired the EVO up backwards as from what I read on Duncans sight and in the instructions that came with the EVO said to if you were using Fender single coils along with it. (I remember that I had to do this on one of my other guitars that had the Texas specials in it as well...)

I finally got the thing all wired up last night and went down to plug it in one of my amps (my amps: https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Savemaker1/Legacy/IMG_1731.jpg ) I didn't have the guitar strung up yet as it was 1 O'Clock in the morning :eek:, but I just wanted to make sure that all of the pickup selections were right before I buttoned it up :) They all were correct, but it seemed to be very noisey and buzzy... This is the way my Kramer is as well (H/s/s w/ Duncan PA-Tb2 and 2 - Texas specials).... I don't know if it's something to do with running a Full humbucker in conjunction with the single cois or what, but if I'm not touching any metal (Bridge, strings....), the thing is a noise monster, then as I touch the metal it goes quiet (??) It sounds like a ground problem only I know that everything is grounded (Bridge, pups, pots, Jack.....)

I'll try and get it strung up tonight after my hockey game and give it a trial run...

Thanks agian!!!

Rick
 
Well I got the thing all strung up last night, and gave it quite the workout...

Everything is as it should be (Or how I wanted it..) Each pup is strong and full sounding and I have the full humbucker along with it's selected counterpart on positions 1, 2, 3 (If you're starting from the bottom position :) )

There's just something about having that single coil overtone to the humbucker that I get when running the Bridge and the neck together..........way cool! :cool:

Thanks again to all who replied to this thread and helped me get this project off the ground!!!! THANKS!!!!!!

I'll post some before and after pics this weekend.

Thanks again,
Rick
 
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