HHH wiring idea

[eroma3803]

Hi there, 

I'm planning on giving my 'old' LAG Rockline (1988) a total makeover. Laquer has some cracks, hardware is begging for an upgrade and such.
The repainting part is for a different forum, but concerning the wiring, I hope I came to the right spot.
My son bought me 3 Dimarzio humbuckers (Liquifire, Rainmaker and Dreamcatcher, guess who's his favourite guitarplayer) and it seems now it's up to me :-)

What I would like to do is create a project guitar (not very handy in a live situation for sure) with:

3 switches (1 for each pickup) for: Series/phase reverse/parallel
Question: Do I need on/on/on switches for that? SPDT?

1 Push/pull tone for HB split so it becomes a SSS guitar all of a sudden
Question: if I put the guitar in SSS this way: the individual PU switches have no funcion anymore right?
Or is there a(n)(easy) way to make the PU's out of phase/in series/parallel with each other. (eg N+M; M+B; B+N)

When it comes to PU switching, I'm thinking of a 6-way freeway switch
1: Bridge
2: Mid
3: Neck
4: Bridge + Mid
5: Bridge + mid + Neck (all)
6: Mid + Neck

Does this sound like a good idea? As you can tell from my questions, I have little clue about wiring, but I read somewhere rewiring can't kill you, so ...

Thanks!

[reTrEaD]

Hello eroma3803 , and to Guitarnuts2

I won't attempt to answer all your questions but I will target a few of them.

Jan 8, 2020 9:37:29 GMT -5 eroma3803 said:

3 switches (1 for each pickup) for: Series/phase reverse/parallel
Question: Do I need on/on/on switches for that? SPDT?

It's not clear exactly what you want to accomplish here with the one switch for each pickup.
I'm guessing you mean for this to allow you to switch between Local series or parallel.
Meaning that you choose whether the two coils of the HB are in series with each other or in parallel with each other.

What does the phase reverse do?
Does that put one of the two coils of the HB out of phase with the other coil?
Or does that put the entire HB out of phase with other pickups?

Since you only have one phase-reverse position, what relationship do the two coils of the HB have with each other?
Are they in parallel or in series?

Regardless of the answer to the above, SPDT wouldn't even come close. Maybe a 4PDT on-on-on. Or maybe that wouldn't have enough poles. idk.

Jan 8, 2020 9:37:29 GMT -5 eroma3803 said:

1 Push/pull tone for HB split so it becomes a SSS guitar all of a sudden
Question: if I put the guitar in SSS this way: the individual PU switches have no funcion anymore right?

Push-pulls are typically DPDT. So you have two poles to work with.
At bare minimum, you'll need one pole for each of the three pickups.
And that's based on a simple series wiring for each HB.
The Local pickup switching you previously mentioned isn't that simple.

[eroma3803]

I thought i'll just add some more info:

I would like the 3 PU's to have individual settings (ser/phase/par, with N and S coils of that PU only involved) and be able to mix them with the 6way switch.
I would also like to have the option to split the pickups, but I think the individual switches won't have any purpose then. So is there a way to put the SC's (splitted HB)in series/parallel/phase with each other?

[newey]

So is there a way to put the SC's (splitted HB)in series/parallel/phase with each other?

Probably, yes, but this will mean more switching is needed.

First off, as RT noted above, switching your individual HBs from series to parallel wiring requires 2 poles of an on-on-on switch. A phase switch requires 2 more poles- and that would be for swapping the phase for either the series or the parallel setting, but not for both. Off the top of my head (and agreeing with RT, basically), to switch to OOP for both the series and parallel settings would likely require a 6 pole switch, and I'm not betting that it can be done even with that. I don't know whether a 6PDT switch exists as a toggle switch in a size that will fit in a guitar cavity, but I've never seen one.

I don't know your level of experience with OOP settings, but the further apart the 2 coils are that are being put OOP with each other, the less signal cancellation there will be (read: higher output). With the 2 of your HBs right next to each other, frequency cancellations will be maximal, and it is unlikely that you will get any kind of usable sounds out of that configuration.

Because adding the phase switches to the individual HBs seriously compounds the complexity here, I would urge you to test this out to see if that sound is one that you really want. If so, the series OOP version is more likely to be useful than parallel OOP.

If you were to drop the idea of intra-HB OOP, you could have 3 DPDT On-On-On switches, one per HB, to give you series/split coil/parallel. However, for each HB, you would have to select which of the 2 coils was to be the split coil (done so as to maximize hum-cancellation, preferably). Since the switch has only three positions, you would not have the choice of Coil A or Coil B for each HB, it would have to be one or the other. But things would be much simplified if you choose to go that route.

As for the freeway switch, there are a couple of versions of that. At a minimum, you would need the "Freeway Ultra" version, and we would have to work out whether your desired options would be possible with that switch. Even if possible, the order of the selections might have to change.

[eroma3803]

Hi, thank you for your response. I'm starting to understand things a bit better now.

I'm gonna re-think what I really want and i'll get back to you.

The idea of leaving the OOP out might be a solution, maybe I can add a push/pull to put 1 HB OOP in serial mode or smthing.



Thanks again!

[Deleted]

3 switches (1 for each pickup) for: Series/phase reverse/parallel
Question: Do I need on/on/on switches for that? SPDT?
NO SPDT is Single need DUAL because there is TWO SIDES.
Also that is a LOT within one Switch, do you not want a OFF button too!!

1 Push/pull tone for HB split so it becomes a SSS guitar all of a sudden
Question: if I put the guitar in SSS this way: the individual PU switches have no function anymore right?
Or is there a(n)(easy) way to make the PU's out of phase/in series/parallel with each other. (eg N+M; M+B; B+N)
I'm not sure what this question is asking, myself

When it comes to PU switching, I'm thinking of a 6-way freeway switch
1: Bridge
2: Mid
3: Neck
4: Bridge + Mid
5: Bridge + mid + Neck (all)
6: Mid + Neck
Ill have to look up this 6-way freeway switch to understand it better

Is this 3 x Humbuckers! or 3 Singles 
I did make a SSS that Acts like a HSH just for some thing different