Suhr HSS (guitar no 2) schematic help

[guitarnerdswe]

Hi again guys!

So, here is my other Suhr guitar. This one is slightly simpler. I think it's correct, but somebody looking at it with fresh eyes would help. Some notes:

- All positions are supposed to be in phase and hum-cancelling.
- The mini toggle is only functional in position 3 and 5.
- The SSCII, which is Suhrs silent singlecoil system, needs coils with north polarity and normal wind to work,
(so no RWRP in a the middle positions of a strat, for instance).

Please look over it and feel free to correct me, come with suggestions etc. I'm also open for swapping out the 3PDT switch for a 4PDT if there is some potential benefit.

[Deleted]

5) UP : Bridge North x SSCII  ::  DOWN : Bridge North x Bridge South
4) UP : Middle + (Bridge North x SSCII) :: DOWN : Middle + (Bridge North x SSCII)
3) UP : Neck + (Bridge North x SSCII) :: DOWN : Middle
2) UP : Middle + Neck :: DOWN : Middle + Neck
1) UP : Neck :: DOWN Neck

So got the same

[guitarnerdswe]

Dec 25, 2019 11:45:24 GMT -5 @angeisbunny said:

5) UP : Bridge North x SSCII  ::  DOWN : Bridge North x Bridge South
4) UP : Middle + (Bridge North x SSCII) :: DOWN : Middle + (Bridge North x SSCII)
3) UP : Neck + (Bridge North x SSCII) :: DOWN : Middle
2) UP : Middle + Neck :: DOWN : Middle + Neck
1) UP : Neck :: DOWN Neck

So got the same

Thanks! It really means a lot to have somebody else check this. Slightly surprised that I didn't screw anything up 

[Deleted]

Checked it a few times and then checked with what you think

[newey]

Well, I guess I'll defer to AB if he says it checks out. But I'm not seeing how/where the neck and middle coils' black wires get grounded. Black wire is daisy chained to the SSC II, and from there to the 5-way switch lower left pole, the commons of that pole is connected to the bridge HB yellow wire. So, not seeing where the ground is made for those pickups.

Also, positions 1-4 are all shunted to ground through a 1MΩ resistor?

[Deleted]

Dec 25, 2019 17:26:52 GMT -5 newey said:

Well, I guess I'll defer to AB if he says it checks out. But I'm not seeing how/where the neck and middle coils' black wires get grounded. Black wire is daisy chained to the SSC II, and from there to the 5-way switch lower left pole, the commons of that pole is connected to the bridge HB yellow wire. So, not seeing where the ground is made for those pickups.

Also, positions 1-4 are all shunted to ground through a 1MΩ resistor?

I may have to give up on these circuits..
Yellow from Neck to output the orange to switch hooks up to red that does nothing.
The black of neck goes to middle , the middle hot pink that leads to blue that goes no where.
The back ground from neck then goes to sccii and then on to ground..

[guitarnerdswe]

Dec 25, 2019 17:26:52 GMT -5 newey said:

Well, I guess I'll defer to AB if he says it checks out. But I'm not seeing how/where the neck and middle coils' black wires get grounded. Black wire is daisy chained to the SSC II, and from there to the 5-way switch lower left pole, the commons of that pole is connected to the bridge HB yellow wire. So, not seeing where the ground is made for those pickups.

Also, positions 1-4 are all shunted to ground through a 1MΩ resistor?

You actually commented on some of the few things I didn't change from the original schematic
The black wires for the singlecoils are grounded through the SSC II. Same deal when the humbucker is split to the north coil, the slug coil is then grounded through the SSC II. The 1M resistor is for the singlecoils to see 250K instead of 500K. When not using the SSC II, Suhr uses a 470K resistor for this purpose. When asked about the use of a 1M on my guitar, Suhr replied that they use a different value because of the SSC II.

Dec 25, 2019 18:19:38 GMT -5 @angeisbunny said:

Dec 25, 2019 17:26:52 GMT -5 newey said:

Well, I guess I'll defer to AB if he says it checks out. But I'm not seeing how/where the neck and middle coils' black wires get grounded. Black wire is daisy chained to the SSC II, and from there to the 5-way switch lower left pole, the commons of that pole is connected to the bridge HB yellow wire. So, not seeing where the ground is made for those pickups.

Also, positions 1-4 are all shunted to ground through a 1MΩ resistor?

I may have to give up on these circuits..
Yellow from Neck to output the orange to switch hooks up to red that does nothing.
The black of neck goes to middle , the middle hot pink that leads to blue that goes no where.
The back ground from neck then goes to sccii and then on to ground..

I don't know if you imply that you got something wrong, or just clearing up somethings to newey, but here is what I intended with the 3PDT mini toggle for anyone who is curious:

Upper horizontal pole: Common red wire goes to output in the middle position of the 5-way. It chooses either the middle pickup (purple), or neck (orange).

Middle horizontal pole: Common blue wire goes to middle position of the 5-way. Either it does nothing, or it adds the north/slug coil of the humbucker (grey wire) to output in the middle position, yielding a bridge split / neck in parallel combo, a bit like a Telecaster. The north/slug coil of the humbucker is grounded via through the SSC II via the lower left pole of the 5-way in this position.

Lower horizontal pole: This is for the humbucker split in position 5 of the 5-way switch only. The north/slug coil of the humbucker (yellow) is connected to the lower left pole of the 5-way, then goes to the mini toggle via the pink wire. The mini toggle then either connects the coil in series to the south/screw coil (red) for a series humbucker, or to the SSC II and then on to ground via black, for a split humbucker tone with noise reduction.

Does this make sense?

[Deleted]

It is correct and i did notice at the time that the Neck/Middle hooked up the SCCII, so i dont know why (if i did) go wrong

To Try and make it easier, ive taken out the 3P2T switch LEFT is UP and MIDDLE is DOWN  and RIGHT With Switching


and the 1M Ohms Switch is no care to me really, (also the Resister should be the other way on the switch but it dont matter)

Now linked all the Colours up so it streams from the Pickups



I've not got enough screens to look at this .. i dont like circuits like this layout (always try never to reuse colours) and WHY change a colour half way in !! 
having a dam hard time following this on my screen.
Unless you SHORT the SHARED Black line with Middle and Neck to Green/Ground you will always have the SSCII linked to to them.

Where are these designs coming from i keep getting puzzled by CURVED and Square Corners mixed in the same circuit and 45' ones too.. has this circuit been edited .. the Square corners are the NEW bits, ie the Switch

[guitarnerdswe]

Damn @angeisbunny , you're the man! I'm not used to reading schematics like that, but once I got over the initial hurdle, they made total sense. I'm just so used to reading the schematics from Suhr and Dimarzio, which look more like what the actual wiring looks like when you flip the pickguard over.

May I ask you what software you used to create them? I did mine in MS paint by modifying the original schematics, and it just takes forever

[Deleted]

If it wasnt for "newey13" i would of been BLIND


EasyEDA : I make PCB and Diagrams, but to bring them in to this site i have to COPY the screen paste in LUNAPIC (online Editor) and save.
Now if you had your "Neck + (North x SSCII) in Position 1
you would only need a 2P2T switch

[newey]

The black wires for the singlecoils are grounded through the SSC II.

I would have had to know a lot more about this SSC II to know this, it is not at all obvious from the diagram, especially since the SSC II has a separate green wire to ground.

[guitarnerdswe]

The schematic started out as the original Suhr one for this particular guitar. All the square and 45 degree corners are definitely me. Some or the rounded ones are original, some are copy and paste by me, before I gave up on trying to do that for every corner. Suhr often the same colour twice, as long as they don't cross. That's why I reuse some colours as long as they don't cross. There are only so many easily identifiable colours (for instance, Suhr never uses orange AFAIK). I've also seen them use striped lines, but that's not very easy to do in MS paint 

Regarding 2P2T vs 3P2T as a mini toggle: I have already replaced the 2P2T that was originally in the guitar with a 3P2T. So that's a none issue. Plus, I really like having the 5-way switch work as either a normal superstrat, or a pseudo Nashville Telecaster    Also, the one I put in has a long lever. The original CK switch had a short lever and was a hassle to operate in live settings.

Here is the original Suhr schematic:

[guitarnerdswe]

Dec 26, 2019 7:15:02 GMT -5 newey said:

The black wires for the singlecoils are grounded through the SSC II.

I would have had to know a lot more about this SSC II to know this, it is not at all obvious from the diagram, especially since the SSC II has a separate green wire to ground.

Sorry, I might have made a faulty assumption that people either knew about the SSC II being a dummy coil, and/or seeing that the SSC II connection on the neck and middle was unaltered by me. My bad!

[Deleted]

SCCII Pickup.. can we have all the specs on this Pickup .. ive never seen such a thing.. if all is right!

[guitarnerdswe]

Dec 26, 2019 8:11:52 GMT -5 @angeisbunny said:

SCCII Pickup.. can we have all the specs on this Pickup .. ive never seen such a thing.. if all is right!

Not much is know about it. It's only available on Suhr guitars, and can't be bought separately. Some things I've read about is:

- It's passive.
- It doesn't change the DCR.
- It has 2 taps to be used with different pickups. I know that the Suhr V70 (very low output) should use the blue wire. All other pickups I have seen use the white wire (other Suhr single coils, split humbuckers).
- Suhr has put more R&D into it than any other product they make.
- The pickups have to have north polarity and clockwise winding when looking from the top for it to work.
- There is an active version. The output of the guitar is not buffered with this version, it's only active because they use it with noisy P90s.

On a strat, it's placed in a specially routed cavity under the pickguard where there normally is no routing, perpendicular to the strings. The unit itself is about 1x2.5 inches (haven't measured it TBH, it can be slightly bigger). You can't really see it, because it's covered with what looks like black pickup tape around the actual SSCII unit. With singlecoils, it kills the hum so much that they are quieter than humbucker. With a split PAF-style humbucker, it removes about 70-80% of the hum. I don't use hot humbuckers so I don't know if it kills more or less hum with those. Also, I don't know the criteria for using either of the taps, or why it works better with some pickups than others. It designed to work with Suhrs own singlecoils.

[newey]

There is a thread somewhere from years ago about this on Suhr guitars, but I don't think that thread got into the wiring of the thing, just how it works. It is indeed a dummy coil set-up, but IIRC, wound very differently from an actual pickup.

The "tap" for lower-output pickups makes sense, since a dummy coil works best when it mimics the pickup's windings to a certain extent.

- It doesn't change the DCR.

Hard to imagine how this could be the case, it's a coil being wired in series with the pickup. It may be that the change is minimal enough not to matter much, or perhaps their SC pickups are wound such that, combined with the SSC II, the DCR resembles that of a regular Strat SC.

[guitarnerdswe]

Dec 26, 2019 9:28:58 GMT -5 newey said:

There is a thread somewhere from years ago about this on Suhr guitars, but I don't think that thread got into the wiring of the thing, just how it works. It is indeed a dummy coil set-up, but IIRC, wound very differently from an actual pickup.

The "tap" for lower-output pickups makes sense, since a dummy coil works best when it mimics the pickup's windings to a certain extent.

- It doesn't change the DCR.

Hard to imagine how this could be the case, it's a coil being wired in series with the pickup. It may be that the change is minimal enough not to matter much, or perhaps their SC pickups are wound such that, combined with the SSC II, the DCR resembles that of a regular Strat SC.

Apparently, it's the amount of noise a pickup or coil generates, that determine which tap to use (found a quote from John).

Regarding not changing the DCR, John Suhr actually stated this the other day: Suhr Classic Pro pickup SWAP to Fender V mods

But now that you say that it might change it so little negligible, I have a notion of reading John stating how much it did lower it, and it was so little, it was totally inaudible.

[newey]

Didn't see anything in the link about resistance, they're talking about swapping pickups and using a RWRP middle.

The basic problem, which was only hinted at in the thread, is that there is no standard definition of what "north" or "south" means from one pickup manufacturer to the next- "North" might mean the North pole of the magnet(s) points "up" (i.e., towards the strings), or it might mean the opposite. That's why they suggested using a compass to check in that thread.

If using a 3-pickup "matched" Strat set with a RWRP middle, however, by definition at least one (and perhaps two) pickups will not work with the SSCII set-up. But the difference between the neck and middle pickups in a "matched" set is usually pretty minimal, it's the bridge pickup that has significantly higher resistance- so just use two neck pickups instead (assuming the magnetic polarity is right with the Suhrs)

One of the posters in that thread seemed to suggest just swapping the wires around would solve the problem, but it won't- doing so without also reversing the magnets will put the pickups out of phase with each other.

[guitarnerdswe]

I think it says pretty directly in John's post that the SSCII doesn't change the resistance like a trim pot does, since it uses taps instead?

[newey]

I took his meaning there that a trimpot would add considerable resistance (which it will,it's adding another pot into the circuit), whereas the SSCII does not. That's not saying it adds nothing to the equation.

The tap is (presumably) a coil tap in the true sense of the word- a connection that "taps into" a certain point in the coil windings, such that only half (or some other fraction) of the windings are in use. This would make perfect sense if paired, as you said it is, with a low-output pickup- using fewer windings in the SSCII to better pair with a pickup having fewer winds.

There is only one "tap"- the blue wire. The tap helps pair the unit with a given pickup, to maximize noise reduction. This has nothing to do with the DC resistance of the unit when being used as you are doing. Granted, the DC resistance of half of the SSCII (or whatever fraction the tap connection makes) will be less that the whole winding, but that's not what we're meaning here, you're not using the tap anyway.

EDIT: And in any event, it's pretty useless for us to debate whether the SSCII adds resistance- easy enough to use a multimeter to check the thing when wired to a pickup and get some actual data!

[guitarnerdswe]

I won't be ripping open my guitars for while (need to order the new pickups first), but I can measure the system if you want?

[Deleted]

guess what would be best if we could find someone with a DEAD/Damage one that can be taken apart and seen how it works..

Like when we do Alien autopsy.. come on .. we all been there .. 

[guitarnerdswe]

I'm pretty sure Suhr makes you send back a faulty SSCII before they send you a new one. Alternatively, you have to ship back the guitar/body to have them fix it.

[newey]

Discerning what's inside the SSCII and how it works is a vastly different question to whether it adds significant resistance to the circuit. As far as resistance is concerned, no need to disassemble anything, it could be checked at the output jack.

Discerning Strat-type resistances

Here, the SSCII can be treated as just another pickup in the calculations. Since it is not active in all positions, it should be fairly easy to "zero out" any resistance it may add, extrapolating from the readings in positions with and without the SSCII in the circuit.

As to how it works, if this is a proprietary system, there are likely one or more patents that Suhr has obtained which could be instructive. (I'm at work at the moment and can't play hookey any longer to go do a search . . .)

[guitarnerdswe]

None of my guitars have any positions that are the same besides SSCII or no SSCII. I'll try and check if I can measure something when I replace the pickups and wiring.

And yes, there are patents on the SSCII.