spaceboy
Rookie Solder Flinger
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Post by spaceboy on Jun 29, 2006 17:36:34 GMT -5
hey thar! Just found this place from the ever-useful Guitarnuts site, looks mighty fine! I'm currently (like, right this second) working on my monstrous 9-switch strat system for any combination of pickups in or out of phase and in series or parallel (in case anyone is interested). thought this bridge tone control looked like a good idea too tho but see in the last diagram? adding in the 2nd capacitor for the bridge, just how "small" should it be? perhaps 0.0047uf like in this wiring idea? any advice on capacitor size would be really cool, though obviously it's rather subjective. cheers! PS. this is the schematic  only, instead of the 6pdt switch its 3 dpdt's, making 3 switches per pickup. I'll post a photo of the finished guitar when it's done if anyone cares ^_^ |
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Post by UnklMickey on Jun 29, 2006 18:01:16 GMT -5
hi Spaceboy,
welcome to GuitarNuts2.
i'll let others make recommendations on cap sizes.
i think a more important thing for me to do is to save you some grief with your design.
before you get out the soldering iron, get your pencil and paper back out.
if you look carefully at the bottom part of your switching arrangement,
you'll see that you MUST have ALL the pickups switched on, in the series portion to complete the circuit.
you can't have just 2, or you won't complete the circuit.
i'd hate to see you wire it up, and then discover the problem afterwards.
good luck,
unk
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spaceboy
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
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Post by spaceboy on Jun 29, 2006 20:47:43 GMT -5
AAAAAAAGHHH!!! you've got me really scared now... I mean, cheers for the reply ^_^ in fact, i realised after posting that my actual question is extraneous because it looks fairly impossible/bloody difficult to have two tone pots, so a single universal tone knob will more than do I think... But yeh, this is a problem, mainly because I designed this over a year ago, and it's only know I've actually gotten around to trying it out... So I'm a bit out of practice with this electronics malarky, but what I'm pretty sure I THOUGHT would work (and had forgotten about til now!) was On-On-On switches in the series line... (I've just gone n put on-off-ons in the pickguard tonight, lucky I didn't get the soldering iron out yet like you say!) but yeh, it's been so long since I thought about this, and it's getting so late ^_^ that I can't really think whether that would make the bloody thing work... AARGH!! anyone think on-on-ons will work? I'm sure I was told on some other guitar forums at the time that they would... and yeh, having a good look at it now I'm pretty sure that it would... if it does work, cheers for reminding me I still need some on-on-ons! if not... cheers for destroying my hopes and dreams...  cheers unklmickey, or anyone else! |
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Post by sumgai on Jun 30, 2006 4:29:25 GMT -5
spaceboy,  to the forums! What unk hinted at, I'll spell out for ya. Instead of selecting pups in series by turning them on like you do in the parallel method, you need to have all three pups already hooked up in series. Then you remove an unwanted pup from the output by shorting it out with a spst switch, or some part of a more complicated switch. That outta get your thinking cap smoking, eh?  sumgai |
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Post by sumgai on Jun 30, 2006 4:35:59 GMT -5
spaceboy, Tone caps vary, but the general starting point is 0.022 at the low end, up to maybe 0.05 mfd. (Or µfd.) You can certainly go lower, but I have personally never seen anything less than 0.015 in a guitar. The other end is also up to you, of course, but the higher you go, the sooner the control cuts way back on the treble, and the final result is bound to be a pretty dark tone. It's your choice, but whatever you use, make sure they're good quality. Nothing worse than having to replace stuff you just dropped in, because you bought too 'cheap' the first time. HTH sumgai |
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Post by UnklMickey on Jun 30, 2006 13:40:59 GMT -5
...if not... cheers for destroying my hopes and dreams..... hi Spaceboy, i'd like to think of it as waking you up from the nightmare, that is putting much effort into something that didn't work. do some research on the different types of ON-ON-ON switches. by that, i mean what happens in the middle position. additionally, i want to point out, that you might consider connecting the pickups first, to switches that have no other function except phase. also, you will need more than 2 poles for the switches other than the phase switches. there are additional tasks (house-keeping) that need to be addressed when using a series link. 1 -- when a pickup is off, or in the parallel side, it's position on the series side must be shorted. 2 -- the series side should not be connected to the main circuit UNLESS at least one pickup is switched to series. 3 -- the exception to rule 2 is when ALL pickups are OFF, it is a good thing to have the series side connected to the main circuit (shorting the output) if you keep those principles in mind, you might be able to work this out. if you don't, either blind luck will save you, or you will be doomed to failure. in any case paper and pencils are cheap, so work in that realm until you get it sussed. then have someone proofread your work. JohnH here at GN2 has helped by pointing out flaws in my designs, more than once. unk |
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spaceboy
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
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Post by spaceboy on Jun 30, 2006 18:05:45 GMT -5
bloody hell, this is a lot to take in! I hope my destruction of hopes and dreams comment wasn't taken at all seriously btw  I'm extremely grateful for all your input, I never expected so much help at all! And i suppose in light of all your unexpected help, I should probably clarify everything about the system, just in case that puts anything in a new light... here goes. the middle "series/parallel" switches are on/on, 2 position dpdts. the three parallel switches are on-off-on. and the series on-on-on switches aren't "centre on" (illustrated below, left) they're the other kind, illustrated on the right...  now then, do the same problems still apply? cos it still SEEMS to work, to me... cheers guys, this place is aces! ^_^ |
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Post by UnklMickey on Jun 30, 2006 18:37:39 GMT -5
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Post by sumgai on Jul 3, 2006 5:32:44 GMT -5
All of which reminds me, I hadn't updated that topic since my fileserver went gunnysack awhile back. Thanks for the tickle, unk. spaceboy, although my design goals were different, there was a lot of give-and-take exchanged in that topic, so you're bound to learn more than you ever wanted to know about what to pitfalls and traps to avoid. You can ask any questions either over there, or right here. sumgai |
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I'm extremely grateful for all your input, I never expected so much help at all! And i suppose in light of all your unexpected help, I should probably clarify everything about the system, just in case that puts anything in a new light... here goes.