Troubleshoot Red Special wiring with serial/parallel switch

[kraftzeug]

Hello everyone.
First let me introduce myself. I'm a french electrician and a newbie in building/wiring guitars.

I've started to build my second guitar based on these schematics from John Hewit:


Here's the problem:
When I'm on series, the independant pickup switches work ok, but if I toggle any phase switch, it cuts off the sound.
When I'm on parallel, the neck pickup doesn't work, the middle phase switch has no effect and the bridge phase switch cuts off sound.

I've double-checked twice my wiring and I'm pretty sure I've wired it like the schematics, but I must have done something wrong.
I also have tried this one from 1728.org but with almost exactly similar issues:



This is driving me nuts!
I've checked both the schematics and my wiring and I still don't understand why on earth it doesn't work.
If someone could be of any help. Thanks !

[Deleted]

there is no way you can c__k up a Phase switching !!
so must be after that 

lets see photos of your wiring (PS im English Electrician, did it after studying Electronics tho)




just working off JOHNS work (hope i got all the bits in the right places and the same shades of colour)

[kraftzeug]

Hey!
Nice to meet a fellow spark guitarist! 

Here are some photos of my wiring:

[Deleted]

on the 2P4T switch you got too many bridges 

If working off Johns (the 1728.org one just doesnt look right to me, just feel not enough ground points for some reason!) any way i know johns a bit better.. Working off Johns one your WHITE connection bridge that bypass one leg (cant see any thing like that on the 1728.org one) is ok but the one Purple/Blue and Yellow i dont think should be there... also i guess you did have the GROUND hooked up to the WHITE Bridge

[kraftzeug]

Thanks angeIsbunny ! 

I'll try that after christmas.
Like you guessed, I forgot to wire the white bridge to ground. And this bridge is not on 1728's schematic but both legs had to be wired to ground.

I imagine you already tried John Hewit's wiring and assume it's working and there's no errors on the schematic; so if the modifications you advised on 1728's do not work, I'll try John's again knowing this time any error must be mine.

[Deleted]

1728.org Diagram
The Bridge only needs a 1P2T

Series Mode: 4P2T UP
Neck Down : Ground Neck out
Neck Up : Goes on to 2nd Pole of 4P2T

Middle Down : Shorts out Middle Pickup going on to 4th Pole
Middle Up : Follows on from Neck, (Ever Ground/Neck)

Bridge Down : Sends Signal from the 1st/2nd/3rd Poles to OUTPUT
Bridge Up : hooks up and goes via the Bridge Pickup



Parallel Mode : 4P2T DOWN
Neck Down : Off
Neck Up : On

Middle Down : Off
Middle Up : On

Bridge Down : Off
Bridge Up : On

[JohnH]

Thanks for trying this scheme and welcome to GN2.

As I see it, the most obvious issue to tackle is the phase switches. As AB pointed out, they really cant have a problem!, Two wires go in, two come out and there is no ground. They are independent of anything else, so easy to check and fix. If switching a phase switch cuts out sound, it suggests that either:

The coil wires of the pickup are directly grounded. They shouldn't be. Sometimes the body, base or case of a pickup is grounded, but the coil wires should be free from ground, or
The switches are very different from a normal dpdt switch, or
Some wiring issue right at the phase switch itself


But also, Im looking at your 4pdt series/parallel switch, I'm seeing parts from both wolfs 1728 diagram, and from my one. eg, on my diagram, there is a loop from the lower lugs of poles 2 and 4 (green in mine, white in your photo), but also on the other side of the switch, pairs of lugs linked, per Wolf, 1 to 2 and 3 to 4, where I only use one of those. So need to match fully with one diagram! The two designs are similar but not the same.

[kraftzeug]

Ok, thanks JohnH, you found my problem:
My pickups wires have only a single lead for hot and a braid, so I suppose they must be grounded.

[kraftzeug]

Update:
I have rewired my pickups; the braid was split in two, a part soldered to the pickup baseplate and since my pickguard is made of steel...
This solved the phase switch problem, but I ran into another issue: I had dead tone on some configurations.
I decided to use my multimeter and discovered I had 377kOhm on the middle pup output on parallel. This reading was at the jack, but I read 6.7kOhm directly at the pup output. This confirmed I had a wiring issue. I followed the wires till I found where it went from 6.7 to 377 and discovered I had reversed the two brown wires.

Everything works ok now (except for my passive distortion but that's an other issue).

Many thanks to both of you, your advices helped me a lot! 

If I had an advice to anyone using these schematics, it would be to use a different color for every wire, this makes it so much easier not to mix wires and to troubleshoot.

Anyway, thanks again, especialy to John for his wonderfull schematics!

[Deleted]

Well if it helps I make them same errors with cable...

The other thing I keep doing (stupid,) is doing it all in one go. Should do in stages and tested , because the effects of it when all together is a lot different.