New guy. Esquire question

[thejoe]

Hey guys,
I've modded my esquire to have a single volume knob. It's a DPDT push pull pot. My hopes are that i can use the push pull to toggle between just the pick up and then the pickup with a cap to cut some highs.
I've not been able to figure it out and thought I'd let some others take a stab at it.
Thanks,
Joe

[newey]

Hey Joe-

Hello and Welcome!

Can't help you with a diagram for this just now as my mattress is a'callin' me . . . ;D But what you propose is easy enough, and someone will be along soon to help.

But you can probably figure this out yourself. The cap treble cut option is part of the original Esquire 3-way switch wiring scheme, which also had the std pickup wired to V and T controls, with the third switch position bypassing the tone knob for more of a "direct out" (sort of) tone.

What you want is essentially the first two of the three tone options on a classic Esquire, eliminating the Tone bypass option.

So, if you think of your push-pull pot as being kinda like a Tele 3-way switch turned on its side and missing the last pair of terminals, you can translate the classic Esquire wiring diagram to your push/pull.

Does that make any sense??

Edit: After rereading your post, I realize you have already eliminated the Tone pot, so it's really the Bypass option and the cap option (minus the Tone) you're after. IIRC, this is positions 1 and 3 of the std Esquire wiring, so you'd be eliminating position 2 (I think- it's been awhile since I played an actual Esquire)

My Esquire has a dual-rail pickup with series/parallel/coil split on the switch, so it's quite different than the std vintage Esquire wiring. And my memory of how the originals were is not to be trusted too closely.

[thejoe]

I can't seem to figure this beast out. Could someone maybe draw up a diagram? I can follow them no problem I'm just no good making them up on my own.

Here's what I got now:



I didn't include all the ground connections, but its the signal I'm most concerned about.

[ChrisK]

This will show how the push pull pots work;
Electronics Templates

What you have now will filter out low frequencies, not high frequencies. You have the capacitor in series with the pickup's output when switched in.

To filter out high frequencies, you want the cap to be switched across the pickup's wires. One end of the cap goes to ground (along with the pickup ground) and the other end goes to a switch pole (the middle terminal in each row of three, which is switched to either end terminal). This pole should connect to the signal output lead from the pickup when the low pass (high pass to ground) filter is engaged.

I would suggest experimenting with different cap values (which sets the corner frequency of the filter) as well as different resistor values (which sets the depth of the effect) to get the sound that you want.

The easiest way to do this is to use a standard tone control circuit and adjust the cap value and resistor setting to your liking. Then replace the pot with a fixed resistor of the closest value.

The Passive High-Cut Tone Control

Pickup Coil Response Tuning

You will need a digital multimeter to discern this resistor value.


This testing can be done external to the guitar, across the cable conductors.

[thejoe]

Chris,
You're saying the Cap should be on one of the middle poles? Aren't the middle ones the output of the switch?
I'm sorry for all of the questions. I know my way around a guitar and a soldering iron, but I'm not too good with switches.

[ashcatlt]

The middle terminals are the "commons" for each of the poles. Input and output are what you make them.

[ChrisK]

[thejoe]

Thank you so much Chris. I'm sorry for any of the headaches I may have caused.
If I read your "serial" numbers properly it seems you made that on Aug 15. which is my birthday, so thank you even more.
-Joe

[ChrisK]

If I read your "serial" numbers properly it seems you made that on Aug 15. which is my birthday,

Arrrghhhhh!!!!!

It's NOT a serial number, it's the DATE in the ONLY LOGICALLY CORRECT format that should EVER be used for a date.

CCYYMMDD

Which scales perfectly, when embedded as the last characters in a file name creates version history, and is a subset of the complete descriptor for every point in time;

(...cccc)CCYYMMDDHHMMSS......

CC - century
YY - year therein
MM - month
DD - day
HH - hour
MM - minute
SS - second
.....etc.

In Europe it's done a$$ backwards, and in the USA it's just plain GeFooey.

In Asia, they get it!



BTW, happy birthday, be sure to buy your parents a present (you had little to do with it and it doesn't make you special since, like navels and sundry other things, we all have one).


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