Active Strat P/U's wiring quandry

[tele27]

Well this is humbling I have rewired tons of strat pickups all passive. I bought a set of the new Fishman Fluence pickups.
They provide a wiring diagram (see url) and I have successfully wired them up and they work and they do sound very good for
a non noise strat pickup, and I have tried a bunch over the years. But when it comes to wiring active pickups I'm pretty clueless.
The problem with their diagram is that when switched to the Bridge position with a traditional 5 way switch there is no tone control.
There are some other quirks in the other positions as well. The push pull post (25K) when pulled makes the pickups a little hotter
something I want to maintain. So are there any out there who could help me wire this so I have a tone control function in the bridge
position and maybe some other alternatives.

www.dropbox.com/s/pof620jdo7v6qu2/fluence_single_strat_wiring_diagram.pdf?dl=0

So with a standard 5 way here is what is going on. This applies to either of the push pull switch positions.

Switch 1 (Bridge) = Just Volume
Switch 2 (Bridge-Middle) =Push pull pot acts as tone and Volume
Switch  3 ( Center)=Push pull pot acts as tone and Volume
Swiitch 4 (Center -Neck) =both the push pull pot and the middle tone pot work and the volume
Switch 5 (Neck) = 2nd tone pot and volume

One of the other things that has me a little miffed is I purchased the optional rechargeable battery pak (http://www.fishman.com/products/view/rechargeable-battery-pack-for-strat)
and there are three wires to a connector (Red, Black, White) that in turn connects to the mating connector on the battery pak.
No instructions were included with the battery pack and none are on their site. I have deduced that the red wire goes to the red wire from the pickup the black wire goes to the ring
side of the input jack but unsure where the white wire goes. Of course I am assuming this from the only diagram I have.
 

[newey]

tele27-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

As far as the rechargeable battery pack goes, I am having difficulty visualizing it from your description. But you might try dropping an email to Fishman's support desk to ask for a diagram.

As far as the wiring scheme goes, it's essentially Standard Strat wiring with the active pickups. It looks like the P/P on pot #3 engages/disengages the active amplification. The switching of the tone controls is just as on a stock Strat, with neck and middle tones controls only, none on the bridge.

Essentially, the diagram is a regular Strat diagram, except that the bridge pickup contains the active circuitry. So, instead of the signal going from the 5-way switch to the Vol and tone pots, it goes first to the bridge pickup, where the active circuitry resides, then goes back out to the V and T pots as a preamped signal.

If you want the bridge pot to have its own tone control, and your willing to lose the middle tone pot, it's an easy modification (and probably the oldest Strat mod in the book). Just as with non-active pickups, you simply switch the wire to the middle tone pot off the 5-way switch to the bridge lug of the 5-way.

On your diagram, this is shown as a yellow wire to the CCW lug of the #3 pot. Trace it back to the 5-way switch. See how it goes to the middle lug on one side (left side, as shown on the diagram)of the 5-way? See how there is an empty lug on the 5-way right above where it is connected?

Simply move that yellow wire to the empty upper lug. You will then have bridge and neck tone controls instead of middle and neck. This also avoids the interaction of the pots at position 4 (N+M), caused by having two tone pots in the circuit at that position in the standard Strat wiring.

[tele27]

Sept 1, 2014 19:04:56 GMT -5 newey said:

tele27-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

As far as the rechargeable battery pack goes, I am having difficulty visualizing it from your description. But you might try dropping an email to Fishman's support desk to ask for a diagram.

As far as the wiring scheme goes, it's essentially Standard Strat wiring with the active pickups. It looks like the P/P on pot #3 engages/disengages the active amplification. The switching of the tone controls is just as on a stock Strat, with neck and middle tones controls only, none on the bridge.

Essentially, the diagram is a regular Strat diagram, except that the bridge pickup contains the active circuitry. So, instead of the signal going from the 5-way switch to the Vol and tone pots, it goes first to the bridge pickup, where the active circuitry resides, then goes back out to the V and T pots as a preamped signal.

If you want the bridge pot to have its own tone control, and your willing to lose the middle tone pot, it's an easy modification (and probably the oldest Strat mod in the book). Just as with non-active pickups, you simply switch the wire to the middle tone pot off the 5-way switch to the bridge lug of the 5-way.

On your diagram, this is shown as a yellow wire to the CCW lug of the #3 pot. Trace it back to the 5-way switch. See how it goes to the middle lug on one side (left side, as shown on the diagram)of the 5-way? See how there is an empty lug on the 5-way right above where it is connected?

Simply move that yellow wire to the empty upper lug. You will then have bridge and neck tone controls instead of middle and neck. This also avoids the interaction of the pots at position 4 (N+M), caused by having two tone pots in the circuit at that position in the standard Strat wiring.


Thanks I will try that out, and see if I can live without the middle pot.

[tele27]

Sept 1, 2014 19:04:56 GMT -5 newey said:

tele27-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

As far as the rechargeable battery pack goes, I am having difficulty visualizing it from your description. But you might try dropping an email to Fishman's support desk to ask for a diagram.

As far as the wiring scheme goes, it's essentially Standard Strat wiring with the active pickups. It looks like the P/P on pot #3 engages/disengages the active amplification. The switching of the tone controls is just as on a stock Strat, with neck and middle tones controls only, none on the bridge.

Essentially, the diagram is a regular Strat diagram, except that the bridge pickup contains the active circuitry. So, instead of the signal going from the 5-way switch to the Vol and tone pots, it goes first to the bridge pickup, where the active circuitry resides, then goes back out to the V and T pots as a preamped signal.

If you want the bridge pot to have its own tone control, and your willing to lose the middle tone pot, it's an easy modification (and probably the oldest Strat mod in the book). Just as with non-active pickups, you simply switch the wire to the middle tone pot off the 5-way switch to the bridge lug of the 5-way.

On your diagram, this is shown as a yellow wire to the CCW lug of the #3 pot. Trace it back to the 5-way switch. See how it goes to the middle lug on one side (left side, as shown on the diagram)of the 5-way? See how there is an empty lug on the 5-way right above where it is connected?

Simply move that yellow wire to the empty upper lug. You will then have bridge and neck tone controls instead of middle and neck. This also avoids the interaction of the pots at position 4 (N+M), caused by having two tone pots in the circuit at that position in the standard Strat wiring.

Well it appears that there is something else is going on with this active pickup.I have tried changing the wires above with out the result of a tone control for the bridge. There appears to be a reason
why there is no bridging wire as shown on the wiring diagram. If the two points that are usually tied together on a standard strat switch were there it knocks out the signal altogether. Switching the 
the wires between the 5 way and the 3 way 2nd tone does not do it either. Somehow I have a feeling that in order to get my result I will need a DG switch. Unless I am missing something the monkey wrench
seems to be that yellow wire coming off the bridge pickup. Thanks for your help and time.

[newey]

T27-

There appears to be a reason
why there is no bridging wire as shown on the wiring diagram.

I don't know what wire you mean. I was assuming your guitar was wired as per the diagram you posted. If it wasn't, then that may indeed be a problem.

If the two points that are usually tied together on a standard strat switch were there it knocks out the signal altogether.

Yes. In this scheme, the 2 poles of the 5 way switch are not wired together. The way this is set up, one pole of the 5-way is dedicated to the passive switching of the pickups, while the other pole is the active switching. The 2 sides cannot therefore be connected.

Please post a diagram showing exactly how you have your guitar wired at present, and describing what pickups and controls are currently active for each switch position. That will allow us to take a fresh look at this.

[sumgai]

Sept 5, 2014 15:05:09 GMT -5 newey said:

Please post a diagram showing exactly how you have your guitar wired at present, and describing what pickups and controls are currently active for each switch position.

And more importantly, please post it to a public location, not to a private Dropbox "cloud".

Better yet, since you have to have an image file in the first place (jpg, gif, bmp, png, etc.) in order to generate the PDF file, why not just post that image file directly here in your message? The trick is simple: you can use the Attach File option found just above the textarea when you're writing your message, or you can post it to a repository such as PhotoBucket, ImageShack or others, then link to it from with the body of text itself, using the [img][/img] tags.

As newey points out, the more eyes that can glimpse your creation, the better the chances of finding any errors and fixing them.

HTH





sumgai

[tele27]

Here it is and as it turns out it does work by switching the wire over from pot 2. Along the way
of taking the guard in and out I knocked loose the .022 cap from ground. Thanks for the help.

[sumgai]

t-boy,

I edited your post above to reflect the proper URL, but according to Photobucket, you don't exist... at least not under that name. Even Google and Bing both return null when I search for your name on that site.

Sorry, but it's back to the drawing board for you.






sumgai

[tele27]

Sept 6, 2014 0:20:33 GMT -5 sumgai said:

t-boy,

I edited your post above to reflect the proper URL, but according to Photobucket, you don't exist... at least not under that name. Even Google and Bing both return null when I search for your name on that site.

Sorry, but it's back to the drawing board for you.






sumgai

Uugghh yup sorry will redo that see if I can't get it straight next time.

[sumgai]

tele,

Well, you did do the link thing correctly, the problem is that Photobucket doesn't recognize your username. I knew this when I pasted the link directly in the Address bar, and got bupkis. I then searched on your username with both Bing and Google, and still got nada. Seems to me that either P'bucket is suffering an industrial-siized snafu, or.... well, your guess is as good as mine.

Also, I just re-checked the URL of your first post, the one for Dropbox. They now say that the file has been deleted or moved. If you did that, then please Edit your first post to reflect that factoid. (Possibly a new link? Or leave it with no link at all, that's cool too.) If 'they' did it, then you get extra points for including thinly-disguised sarcastic verbiage, indicating your displeasure at their cavalier handling of your materials.

HTH




sumgai