Wiring (super switch, phase, s/p hb's, mst s/p, pp mst vol)

[amalgam]

I am having work done on a guitar and the shop has been having issues with it. If you (reader) could take a look at this and see if there are any theoretical or potential issues with it, it'd be much appreciated.

The master volume is a push/push dpdt with volume bypass. The neck pickup has a reverse magnet so I can get inner/outer coils with hum cancelling. The five way switch only cancels single coils by connecting the + and - wires. The phase switch looks crazy because the inner workings of the parallel part of the series/parallel switch for the neck pickup is dependent on the phase. The tone control is a drop in so it's wired how it should be.

If there are any suggestions, like if it'd make more sense for a guitar tech to see the neck pickup on the left instead of the bridge pickup or the vol lugs being flipped, please let me know. I've made it the best I know how.

The thing they first said was that there's be an issue with the phase switch and a master series/parallel switch, but I believe having half of the series/parallel switch on the phase switch would fix that.

[Yogi B]

Dec 2, 2023 15:34:13 GMT -5 amalgam said:

The phase switch looks crazy because the inner workings of the parallel part of the series/parallel switch for the neck pickup is dependent on the phase

If you strictly want only the inner coils or outer coils in positions 2 or 4, there is no reason for this to be as complex as you've drawn (though more on this later). To switch the neck into parallel mode all that really matters is that the two +'s (5 & 7) are connected together and that the two −'s (6 & 8) are also connected together — so, that's what the upper two terminals of the neck's S/P switch should do. Then you can delete the right hand side of the phase switch, it only needs to be a DPDT. (Also, the direct ground connections you had on the phase switch would've interfered with the operation of the master series/parallel switch, and as such would be responsible for causing some of the problems you mentioned.)

However there's a bigger issue:

The five way switch only cancels single coils by connecting the + and - wires.

That'll only work as intended when all the series/parallel switches are set to series. When you short-circuit one pickup coil, you'll also short-circuit anything else that is connected in parallel with it. This means, for example, with all switches set to parallel (so all four coils are in parallel with each other) shorting any one coil also shorts the other three, resulting in no output — so in this scenario only position 3 of the 5-way switch would give any output.

I think there is a way to get the 5-way to work as you intend, regardless of the series/parallel switch settings, but the wiring will be a fair bit more complicated. Additionally, I see this necessitating the use of a 3PDT (or 4PDT) as the master series/parallel switch, but since half the 4PDT phase switch would be going unused you could simply swap those two switches. (Edit: on further investigation, my plan only works if the phase switch remains as a 4PDT, so you'd need a new 3PDT or 4PDT for the master series/parallel switch. Therefore you might as well go for the fully hum-cancelling version described below.)

Alternatively, around here we usually try to make a phase switch swap one of the humbuckers to the opposite coils (usually the neck, minimizing the difference in tonality) as out-of-phase hum-cancellation requires two like coils (instead of the opposing coils required for in phase hum-cancellation). With humbuckers' usual internal series wiring this is pretty easy, but is made more complicated if needed to work for both series & parallel wirings. Achieving this would take all of the existing 4PDT phase switch, so you'd need a new 3PDT for the master series/parallel switch.

I'll draw up diagrams for both options when I get time later, and maybe with a bit of luck someone else will spot a more optimal solution.

[Yogi B]

Dec 5, 2023 10:20:52 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

I'll draw up diagrams for both options when I get time later

Well later turned into tomorrow, but now I've started laying out the diagrams I've noticed something else: your toggle switches seem upside-down, at least to the way I'd wire them (assuming they are indeed toggle switches & not slide switches).

This is totally a personal preference, but to me it usually makes most sense to have the louder, fuller sounds (series and in-phase) selected when the toggle switches are flipped downwards (which, perhaps counterintuitively, is the switch position where the middle common terminals are connected to the upper throw terminals).

[amalgam]

Dec 6, 2023 3:45:59 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

Dec 5, 2023 10:20:52 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

I'll draw up diagrams for both options when I get time later

Well later turned into tomorrow, but now I've started laying out the diagrams I've noticed something else: your toggle switches seem upside-down, at least to the way I'd wire them (assuming they are indeed toggle switches & not slide switches).

This is totally a personal preference, but to me it usually makes most sense to have the louder, fuller sounds (series and in-phase) selected when the toggle switches are flipped downwards (which, perhaps counterintuitively, is the switch position where the middle common terminals are connected to the upper throw terminals).

Thank you for the insight. I meant to show the top connections on the switches to mean that they're toggled up. I'll change how that's represented in the future. The toggle of the switch should be down for all three cases s/p switches. For phase, the toggle control would be up. It just makes more sense to me this way. They are all toggle switches other than the super switch.

What the diagram is also meant to show is that hopefully all the coils would be on and working if we completely ignored the super switch as it's just meant to connect positive and negative wires to cancel out coils like how noise cancellation works.

If we took the bridge pickup wired as shown and connected wires 3 and 4 in addition to the other wiring, half of the humbucker would cancel out as a complete circuit is made and it doesn't necessarily need a ground at that point, though it would share any ground in the rest of the signal.

Edit:
I'm going to really look into the meat of your post today. Also, the volume is a push push as mentioned before.

Edit2:
I'm seeing issues.  Worked on this today, but not ready to post as it's WIP

[Yogi B]

This is the design I discussed above, which should solve the incompatibilities between the coil selector & the series/parallel switches.

[amalgam]

Woah, that is really cool, makes sense, and is beautiful.  I just finished my updated schematic and I'll post it just to show where I got.  If you have any more suggestions on how it's laid out or improvements to the ideas in it, please let me know.  I included a tone bypass on the master series switch as I had that in my initial design, but had removed it because the technician requested it as they couldn't get it to work, though I'm not sure why as nothing is going to it or from it when removed from the circuit, but it looks like that won't work as there aren't enough poles, and it was more of a curiosity and the least important feature.

Have you heard of people placing a capacitor and a resistor at each side of the neck pickup so that the output of the neck pickup would be slightly lower when out of phase as fully out of phase cuts a little too much volume/doesn't sound as nice?  It'd be like dialing in the Greeny at a permanent setting if I'm right.  I was thinking it'd be possible, and then recently saw a YouTube video on it, but haven't asked anyone about it.

The only other thing would be adding a variable treble bled but I don't need another diagram for either of these. You've made this easy to understand, and I really appreciate it.  I'll digest this over the next couple days.

Would you happen to have an idea why the technician went through three PMT DMT's?  I haven't heard of anyone having problems online, but when I saw the work, it looks like he was grounding things to the housing.  I'm wondering if that would have shorted it out or damaged the components.

Edit: found this:

"Think I'll solder the ground wire to a lug washer and ground it that way. Won't have to solder anything to the pot. Push/pull are much more delicate, and you would really hate to burn up a $25 pot."

I'm not understanding how signal cancellation would or wouldn't work by connecting the + and - of a coil in a signal though I do wonder if there'd be a lot of noise for example.  I'm really happy that it looks like all will work.


Edit:

And yeah, I see what you mean about getting rid of that half of the phase switch. I went in so many circles, but when I look from a distance, it's clear that all the rest ends with the same result.

Link to the YouTube video to a few seconds before the explanation:


What I had after simplifying the phase switch, direction of the phase toggle and flipping all the connections so the wiring is more understandable for the technician/other people:

[amalgam]

I'm not going to add the small resistor and capacitor because it would affect both when in and out of phase unless I added another switch.  Maybe I'd rather have that in a future build where there isn't a nested series/parallel switch.  Same thing with not adding a tone bypass due to lack poles.


Everything is understandable, and well placed, so I'll print out your wiring, and show the technician.  I'll put continued effort to make mine more readable in the future by flipping the pickups, etc. so it's from their point of view from now on too. Thanks again.