Trouble Understanding Specific Wiring Diagram

[demo]

(Moved to General Wiring by sumgai, 7/28/23)


Hi All, first time poster with a question on this wiring diagram I found on guitarelectronics.com. It's a wiring for a PRS HH that's been updated to use a strat super switch. It's the exact configuration I'm looking to put in my RGX612, but I'm having some trouble tracing two of the positions, it seems they're not matching up with what the selector says.

Positions 1, 3, and 5 all look good.
Position 2 says Neck(N)+Bridge(S) Parallel, but it looks like it's actually Neck(S)+Bridge(N) Parallel, with Bridge(S) being sent to ground on both ends?
Position 4 says Neck(S)+Bridge(N) Parallel, but it looks like it's actually Neck(N)+Bridge(S) Series?

Here's the diagram in question:


And here's how I'm tracing the 2 and 4 positions. Please let me know if I'm missing something obvious or doing something wrong with my understanding here.






Not sure if it's something weird with PRS specific pickups or something like that. Any help here is appreciated, I've tried to figure this thing out many times and finally need some help from people who know better! Thanks in advance.

[reTrEaD]

Thanks for taking the time to work this out. We have a lot of respect for those who do the preliminary work and are just looking for confirmation.

Jun 28, 2023 21:35:29 GMT -5 demo said:

Positions 1, 3, and 5 all look good.

I didn't bother to check those positions so I can't confirm.

Jun 28, 2023 21:35:29 GMT -5 demo said:

Position 2 says Neck(N)+Bridge(S) Parallel, but it looks like it's actually Neck(S)+Bridge(N) Parallel, with Bridge(S) being sent to ground on both ends?

Yes. And Neck (N) is shunted with both ends connected to hot.

Jun 28, 2023 21:35:29 GMT -5 demo said:

Position 4 says Neck(S)+Bridge(N) Parallel, but it looks like it's actually Neck(N)+Bridge(S) Series?

Yes. And the Neck (S) and Bridge (N) are hanging from the series link of the two coils being used.

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In my opinion this architecture is sort of a cluster****. I dislike having unused coils shunted or hanging from hot or a series link. I don't believe that would be necessary to get all of the cited combinations. I'd start with a clean sheet on all the connections to the superswitch and omit the series links between the north and south coils of each HB.

I'd connect the two poles of the superswitch to the CW lug of the volume control.
Then connect the North Finish of the Neck HB to a pole of the superswitch.
And connect the North Finish of the Bridge HB to a pole of the superswitch.
Connect the South Start of each HB to ground.

The North Start and South Finish of each HB will connect to various throws of the superswitch to accomplish the necessary combinations.

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The five stated combinations seem like good choices to me. All five hum-cancel. Inners for one parallel combination and the outers for the other, should sound quite different from each other. And I do like the idea of having the outers in series rather than doing the inners in series. But this set of five aren't etched in stone.

For instance, you could replace one of these five combinations with both series connected HBs in parallel with each other.

We can definitely help you get to wherever you choose to go.

[newey]

Jun 28, 2023 21:35:29 GMT -5 demo said:

a question on this wiring diagram I found on guitarelectronics.com

You are right to question. We often have questions about the diagrams from that source. And, those questions are often well-taken . . .

I did check all 5 positions. #3 is also wrong- I trace it out to be Neck(N) + Bridge(S), i.e., parallel not a series connection as stated in the table. Also, at position 1 (the Bridge HB), the neck HB is hanging from the hot side.

I'm with RT, start over. What you want can be done more cleanly, as suggested.

[demo]

Hi All,

Thanks for the insight here, I really appreciate your help with my questions. Newey, it's good to know that guitarelectronics.com might not be the most trustworthy source of diagrams. Will definitely peruse with additional scrutiny in the future. I was able to get the diagram working with the building blocks that RT laid out for me, I was able to trace everything through and it seems to be wired up correctly, but another set of eyes certainly wouldn't hurt:




Apologies for the crusty diagram, I'm learning a new program called DIY Layout Creator from diy-fever.com. If there's other recommended wiring diagram software please let me know, I'd love to check them out! I did intentionally leave out any volume/tone control for simplicity's sake. I used DIYLC's build-in Guitar Wiring Analyzer to verify the switch positions, and it said everything checked out. I actually learned quite a bit, as it wasn't shy to point out all the weird pickup combinations I was getting from my inexperience with wiring. Seems like a good rule of thumb is that each switch pad should only ever be connected to one wire (save for the parallel outputs at the top), is my intuition correct on that? I ended up creating a lot of weird loops by having several wires connected to a single switch pad, figured out the issue in the end.

Again, I really appreciate the foundation you laid out RT, and I especially appreciate you not just giving me the answer to the problem I was having and instead giving me a starting point I could use to figure out the wiring myself. It was a great learning experience! I am looking to add some additional switches and pots in here, but I'll save that for another more appropriate thread in the future.

[reTrEaD]

Jun 29, 2023 18:02:43 GMT -5 demo said:

Hi All,

Thanks for the insight here, I really appreciate your help with my questions. Newey, it's good to know that guitarelectronics.com might not be the most trustworthy source of diagrams. Will definitely peruse with additional scrutiny in the future. I was able to get the diagram working with the building blocks that RT laid out for me, I was able to trace everything through and it seems to be wired up correctly, but another set of eyes certainly wouldn't hurt:

That's standard operating procedure here. I won't have time to vet this for a day or two but perhaps newey or one of the other nuts will be able to check this sooner.

Jun 29, 2023 18:02:43 GMT -5 demo said:

Again, I really appreciate the foundation you laid out RT, and I especially appreciate you not just giving me the answer to the problem I was having and instead giving me a starting point I could use to figure out the wiring myself. It was a great learning experience! I am looking to add some additional switches and pots in here, but I'll save that for another more appropriate thread in the future.

After interacting with different people over several years, we become adept at recognizing when it makes sense to just give the answer and when it makes sense to provide some guidance and let the member shine on their own.

Jun 29, 2023 18:02:43 GMT -5 demo said:

Apologies for the crusty diagram, I'm learning a new program called DIY Layout Creator from diy-fever.com. If there's other recommended wiring diagram software please let me know, I'd love to check them out! I did intentionally leave out any volume/tone control for simplicity's sake. I used DIYLC's build-in Guitar Wiring Analyzer to verify the switch positions, and it said everything checked out. I actually learned quite a bit, as it wasn't shy to point out all the weird pickup combinations I was getting from my inexperience with wiring. Seems like a good rule of thumb is that each switch pad should only ever be connected to one wire (save for the parallel outputs at the top), is my intuition correct on that? I ended up creating a lot of weird loops by having several wires connected to a single switch pad, figured out the issue in the end.

I'm one of the worst to ask. I do most of my work in MS Paint. Functional but not particularly pretty.  I'll defer to the other nuts on this one.

If you're open to some constructive criticism, I recommend not having the wires from the pickups "fan out" and travel beneath the switch. While it looks less cluttered at first glance, that makes it harder to follow when proofreading and really doesn't help when you go to actually implement the wiring.

If you want to give this another go, maybe reduce your line widths, decrease the size of the pickups (no need to waste much real estate for that), and significantly increase the size of the superswitch. At least three or maybe even four times the current size. Maybe even increase the distance between the two wafers. Things get very busy around the switch and more space will allow for greater clarity in the jumpers from lug to lug.

Maybe use the two poles on right half of the superswitch for the wiring that goes to the output (maybe make those blue, since you won't be using that color for your pickup wires. Then use the upper left pole for the white from the Neck and the lower left pole for the white from the bridge?

It's not mandatory to put the colors from the pickups in any particular order, left to right or top to bottom.You could arrange them as desired to minimize the number of crossings.

Loop the Black from the Neck around the top to throw 5 on the upper right.
Loop the Black from the Bridge around the bottom to throw 1 on the lower right.
Run the White from the Neck to the pole (common) on the upper left.
Run the White from the Bridge to the pole (common) on the lower left.
Run the Red from the Neck to throw 5 on the upper left.
Run the Red from the Bridge to throw 1 on the lower left.
Now your HBs have all the wires necessary to at least one lug on the switch and your positions 1 and 5 are fully wired.
Work out the jumpers from lug to lug to complete the wiring for positions 2, 3, and 4.
Does this sound like a workable plan?

[reTrEaD]

Jun 29, 2023 18:02:43 GMT -5 demo said:

was able to get the diagram working with the building blocks that RT laid out for me, I was able to trace everything through and it seems to be wired up correctly, but another set of eyes certainly wouldn't hurt:

I had some time today so vetted your drawing. I can't find any errors.

I also made an MS Paint drawing of the superswitch wiring.

[demo]

Hi RT,

Thanks for vetting my diagram, good to know there's no circuitry issues there. Also appreciate you taking the time to put together that cleaned up diagram for me, it's 100% more readable than the spaghetti I cooked . I did do some clean up on my own diagram, namely removing the wire splits and turning them into lug jumpers and it has helped the diagram readability quite a bit.


The area I'm struggling in now is how to integrate tone pots into this setup. I'm looking to have one tone pot for each pickup, but the issue I'm running into is that when the HBs are split, there's always a case when either the north or south coils would be bypassing the tone pot and going straight to the switch. I've played with a couple variations of this but they all come up short:



In this case the tone pot would work for each pickup so long as the hot is running out of the north coil, but in the case where the coils are split and hot is running out of the south coil, it just goes straight to the switch which bypasses the tone pot for the parallel modes (2, 4) and ends up only using the neck pickup tone for position 3. Is this possible with only one tone pot for each pickup?


I've tried searching for a solution but it seems everything that comes up is referencing blend pots for gradual splitting (probably due to my limited vocabulary in this are). Is what I'm looking to do possible with a regular tone pot setup, or is this combination simply impossible with the current setup? Thanks again for all your help.

[reTrEaD]

This switching arrangement doesn't allow for the use of separate tone pots for Bridge and Neck pickups in traditional fashion. And I'm not sure that's particularly desirable anyway. In all of parallel combinations, a separate tone pot doesn't affect the tone of just the one pickup it's connected to. It also affects the tone of the pickup that's connected in parallel, as well. And in any parallel combination where both tone pots are active, the both affect the overall tone.

Unfortunately, there isn't one more pole on the switch to assign which positions have one tone pot enabled and which other positions have the other tone pot enabled. So at first glance it seems more sensible to just have a master tone pot.

However, you could have an additional tone pot that's also enabled in positions 1, 3, or 5 (or any two or three of those positions) by using the throw(s) that are currently unused on the right half of the superswitch. For instance, if you the additional tone pot to only throw 5 of the lower right section of the superswitch, you could dial that in for a deep cut in position 5 for a 'woman tone' when the Neck HB is selected.

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Using the connections you've indicated in your drawing, the results aren't horrible. You have exactly one tone pot that's active in each of the five positions.  Personally I like that, although which tone pot is active isn't particularly intuitive.

Position	Pickups	Tone pot
5	Neck HB	A (Neck)
4	Bridge N + Neck S (Inners Parallel)	B (Bridge)
3	Neck N x Bridge S (Outers Series)	A (Neck)
2	Neck N + Bridge S (Outers Parallel)	A (Neck)
1	Bridge HB	B (Bridge)

With that in mind, it might sense to make a slight modification to the wiring and change the sequence on the switch to place the Inners Parallel in position 2 and the Outers Parallel in position 4.

Position	Pickups	Tone pot
5	Neck HB	A (Neck)
4	Neck N + Bridge S (Outers Parallel)	A (Neck)
3	Neck N x Bridge S (Outers Series)	A (Neck)
2	Bridge N + Neck S (Inners Parallel)	B (Bridge)
1	Bridge HB	B (Bridge)