HSH with Free-way blade and Push-pull

[stevewf]

A friend wants to try guitar, and he wants to start with metal. I have strat copy that I can gut and turn into a HSH. I have some monster (cheap) invader-looking pickups on the way, and a HSH pickguard with three knob holes on the way, too. I have lots of pots and switches available, including a Free-way 5B5-01.

I know the Free-way might be a lot to throw at a newbie, but he really wants to get into how different configurations make different sounds, so I thought I'd try for this, wi:h a small twist.

(from freewayswitch.com)

The aforementioned twist would be with the pots: Master Vol, Master treble cut, Master bass cut. Still, pulling up on the pot will split -- by shunting -- both humbuckers to their inner coil (or to whichever coil cancels hum with the middle coil).
The Free-way switch offers 10 combos, which is a lot, but there's not much room for flexibilty beyond that, in terms of choosing which coils and pots to include and how (so there are few ways to get like serial/parallel switching or phase switching). Pretty much splitting the humbucker is what you get to play with. Curious? see the thread Free-Way Blade Switches: Truth Tables and Photos

Anyway, so that's what I'm on the verge of throwing together. So here's a schematic that attempts to do this, and a wiring diagram.


I think you can click on the images to get bigger/clearer versions on screen.

Anybody wanna check for mistakes? I make lots of 'em! Or suggestions for more interesting function?
Remember the sandbox boundaries: it's gonna be the strat (std tremolo) with those three pickups, and we're pretty fixed on that Free-way switch. Thanks!

[newey]

I'm awaiting the arrival of a new eyeglass Rx, I'm needing bifocals, apparently, so having a bit of difficult even with the enlargement. But I got through about half of it and saw no mistakes so far. More later.

As for suggestions, I'd add another p/p to connect the middle by itself, disconnecting the Freeway. But that's me, I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes the middle SC all by itself on a Strat. I spend a lot of time in position 3 on Strats with a 5-way switch. Of course, your friend's mileage may vary . . .

[stevewf]

Thanks for spending time on it, newey. I'm trying to figure out how I can export from the diagram software I'm using without a fuzzy result (that the free cloud hosting service will accept), sorry! I use draw.io for wiring diagrams because it's free and works on MacOS. When I export to TIFF format (which I thought was lossless?) I get a fuzzy picture. If I figure it out, maybe new glasses won't be required. [Edit: it looks like the free service (postimages) allows PDFs, and my free drawing software (draw.io) will export PDFs. The result looks a bit clearer when I test, so here is a new version]

And thanks for the middle-only suggestion, which I have to pass on this time. It's because of a stuffed parts box. I decided to throw a Bourns push-push pot at this, since I have a handful and don't seem to use them. Unfortunately, Bourns push-push pots use their own format of pot wafers, so I don't get to trade wafers with the other Bourns pots I have... another reason I no longer favor the push-push pots and want to get rid of them. This time it means I can't have a push-push C-taper pot. So the new push-push switch would have to go with the volume pot, which I've discovered sometimes gets hit by the whammy bar. So if I add another switching pot, I feel like I have to use push-pulls... and as mentioned, I wanna instead get these push-push ones outta the parts box. Otherwise, it'd be a certain Yes.

[ssstonelover]

stevewf
If you want choice, and you are using HSH and have space for 3 pots then you are looking at the wrong switch (Free-way has 2 switches for the Strat).
Open this alternative link 5B5-02 Model - Schemes for HSH / HSS / HHH Guitars and then download the aforementioned schematic and use that one as your base.
You will find 8 HSH wiring diagrams in the download, so something should strike your fancy

[kitwn]

Oct 26, 2024 12:19:05 GMT -5 newey said:

I'm awaiting the arrival of a new eyeglass Rx, I'm needing bifocals, apparently, so having a bit of difficult even with the enlargement. But I got through about half of it and saw no mistakes so far. More later.

It comes to us all in time!

I now have varifocal plain glasses, varifocal sunnies, single vision sunnies (pilot style for looking cool in), prescription reading glasses and a prescription scuba diving mask. Plus several pairs of cheapo, off-the-shelf reading glasses in various strengths that I use around the workshop for the really close jobs like soldering surface-mount chips. 😎

Kit

[stevewf]

Oct 27, 2024 17:09:17 GMT -5 ssstonelover said:

stevewf
If you want choice, and you are using HSH and have space for 3 pots then you are looking at the wrong switch (Free-way has 2 switches for the Strat).
Open this alternative link 5B5-02 Model - Schemes for HSH / HSS / HHH Guitars and then download the aforementioned schematic and use that one as your base.
You will find 8 HSH wiring diagrams in the download, so something should strike your fancy

Hi ssstonelover. I also own a 5B5-02, but I liked the offerings of the 5B5-01 here. It offers some series choices, whereas the 5B5-02 is all parallel (at least as far as I can imagine).

I wanna show my guy some series versus parallel, so it was the -01 for me this time.

BTW, Free-way also offer a 3-position switch that'll fit in a std Strat mount. [Edit: The 3B3-01 also ends toward the parallel side IIRC. The 3B3-01 does offer interesting series/phase options for 2-pickup guitars, including HOoP].

[ssstonelover]

stevewf

Yeah, that is the downside of 5B5-02, lots of variety but mostly for parallel. I've exclusively used the 5B5-01 up to now, but I am looking at putting together an HSH, so what you are doing is of a lot of interest to me, as the splitting you are working on while using 5B5-01 should get you there nicely with a bunch of series options.

This one Series/Split Coil/Parallel + PTB + Free-Way 11-way was with that switch and is just a little more ambitious than you are talking about. You could take that diagram as a basis, and for the N and B pickups use the simpler on-on DPDT (with needed revised wiring) to shuttle between HB and SC modes. Of course no switch would be needed for the M pickup (SC only).
Another simplification could be to ditch one of the 2 options for position "6", although actually it is kind of cool and may remain cool when you do all the coil splitting and them 'reassemble' a fresh series connection from the splits of N and B, and/or N, B, M.... It all fits together pretty nicely especially if you use the short toggle handle version of the switch so you don't foul the 5-way switch.

[stevewf]

Thanks, ssstonelover, for reminding me; I'd forgotten about that project and your writeup.

I'm tempted to include that BxM to BxMxN switch in position#6, though that could prove to be a pretty heavy signal in this guitar, due to having high-output pickups in all three locations. The bass cut control could mitigate that, of course.

Your earlier project also has toggles for each pickup (parallel/series/single), total of 6 poles in the switches. This current project will have a single coil in the middle, so I could that just the two humbuckers, needing four poles; that could be put into a single 4-pole toggle (provided there's room to cram it in between the other controls - I don't wanna rout the guitar body in this case).

Options: #1 Why not an S1 switch? Because the pots I have on hand present smooth shafts, which means special knobs which wouldn't match the S1 knob. Also, mixing push-pulls and an S1 seems weird to me. Yes, I'm allowing aesthetics to influence the choice of controls, despite the overall purpose of the setup.

#2 Replace one of the knobs with a toggle. The pickguard on hand has three knob holes (3/8" diameter) while the mini toggles need 1/4" holes. In a separate thread, the Nutz have come up with some ways to get a 1/4" control to go in a 3/8" hole. The obvious candidate pot to get removed would be the bass cut pot, but that might be trouble in the BxMxN mentioned above. Replace instead the treble cut pot?

So for now, it looks like I'll stick with the current plan wherein a push-pull (actually, it's a DPDT push-push in this case) will split both humbuckers at the same time.

[ssstonelover]

stevewf

Nothing wrong with your current plan.

I find Strat type knobs are a bit slippery when it comes to using push-pull pots, meaning toggle switches are my go-to alternative, but that'd just me, many love them, or at least love the idea of just the standard number of pickguard holes

As are as the NxMxB, I don't use it a lot, even with the bass cut, though it's fun to have on tap for occasional use. Your pickups seem to be even thicker, so you are likely covering that 'heavy' territory already, meaning you may not gain much for all the extra work you go through.

[stevewf]

Oct 28, 2024 17:46:25 GMT -5 ssstonelover said:

stevewf

Nothing wrong with your current plan.

I find Strat type knobs are a bit slippery when it comes to using push-pull pots, meaning toggle switches are my go-to alternative, but that'd just me, many love them, or at least love the idea of just the standard number of pickguard holes

Yes, Strat knobs are not great for push-pull, agreed. So I buy aftermarket knobs, pretty ones ("likes shiny objects" was one of the positives in my kindergarten reports). The guitar I'm converting is already equipped with shiny knobs, which also contributes to the current plan. Anyway, I'm sloughing a push-push with this guitar, so even Strat knobs would work -- except that one of the other pots that's slated for this guitar has a smooth shaft. So it's the shiny knobs this time.

I don't necessarily love those push-push pots.Even in the Down position, there has to be enough clearance to push the knob down in order to trigger the latch mechanism. There's a noticeable standoff from the pickguard, and the other knobs should match that standoff. So, kinda phooey. I've got four of 'em; there goes one, at last!

As are as the NxMxB, I don't use it a lot, even with the bass cut, though it's fun to have on tap for occasional use. Your pickups seem to be even thicker, so you are likely covering that 'heavy' territory already, meaning you may not gain much for all the extra work you go through.

It is fun every now & then. My poor LP does a 4-coil series thing, and it's almost like having built-in fuzz pedal.[/quote]

[Yogi B]

Oct 25, 2024 22:55:00 GMT -5 stevewf said:

pulling up on the pot will split -- by shunting -- both humbuckers to their inner coil (or to whichever coil cancels hum with the middle coil).

If you do this by connecting the humbucker's series link to ground, as you show, then you'll shunt more than just that pickup's other coil in the series positions. You'll want to replace those grounds with connections to BG & NG (as in the Free-way diagram) to ensure that it's only the 'lower' coil of each HB that gets shunted.

[stevewf]

Oct 29, 2024 22:20:36 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

If you do this by connecting the humbucker's series link to ground, as you show, then you'll shunt more than just that pickup's other coil in the series positions. You'll want to replace those grounds with connections to BG & NG (as in the Free-way diagram) to ensure that it's only the 'lower' coil of each HB that gets shunted.

Thanks, Yogi B, for spotting that one. Really, you know I shoulda known. Anyway, you saved me some head-scratching time because I had to modify one of the humbuckers. I think it's been called "restacking" in this forum.

Because the  pickups did arrive, and they were like a pair of splittable humbuckers plus a middle single, but I didn't anticipate the magnet arrangement that they had. It went SN-S-SN (from neck to bridge). I was thinking it would be SN-S-NS.

I preferred to split to the inner coils, so the bridge pickup had to be changed. I wanted to split to the inner coils of both humbuckers, and I felt that the bridge inner coil should cancel hum when combined with the middle pickup (even at the cost of experiencing hum when in combo with the neck inner coil), and that it should also be in phase with the middle pickup . So the bridge inner coil had to be N, but the factory setup had the N coil in the opposite hum direction.

I think that would be normal in a HH set of pickups (so splitting to the inners would cancel hum), but my HSH setup needed it otherwise. So I flipped the magnet and re-arranged (restacked?) the humbucker: I unsoldered the red/white serial link and instead soldered together the black & green leads. And where the far end of the green lead used to go into the selector switch, now the red one goes; I swapped green and red, and similar for black and white.

Now the thing sounds like I thought it might, and I get to help a friend.


*PS: So, three are three parameters that can be changed, right? The magnetic polarity (north or south), the actual physical winding direction of the coil (CW or CCW), and how the two ends of the coil wire get designated (hot or cold).

And do I further have it right that in order to change either the phase or the hum "direction" (and not both), exactly two of those parameters should get swapped?

In this case, I changed the first and third parameters and now I'm happy.

[newey]

I think it's been called "restacking" in this forum.

Yes it has, by member ashcatlt. wolf, one of our original members who we haven't heard from in a while, calls it wiring the HB "inside out".

Unless one really cares whether one is splitting to the slug coil versus the screw coil (and it doesn't matter at all for HBs without screws), or unless the two coils are dissimilar (like SD's "P-rails" for example), it is usually a whole lot easier to just rotate the bridge HB 180° rather than flipping magnets.

As to hum cancelling, you basically have it correct. We have a more detailed discussion of hum-cancellation in a discussion started by JohnH here. The discussion meanders a bit, we were planning on distilling it down into a post to go into the Reference section but I don't think that ever actually happened. ChrisK also posted a good explanation long ago, but I can't seem to locate that one at present. His explanation (somewhat simplified from the thread posted above) is that phase is affected by 3 parameters- direction of the vibrating guitar string over the pickup coil(s), the magnetic polarity of the coils, and the winding direction of the coils. Change any one of those parameters, and the signal is out of phase; change two and the signal is back in phase.

Since the guitar string has to move in both directions as we play, we can't alter the first parameter. We can only change the magnetic polarity and/or the winding direction. Since rewinding the pickup in the opposite direction isn't a realistic option, we typically just switch the start and finish wires around. This isn't exactly the same as winding in the opposite direction, as reTrEaD points out in the link above, but for the purposes of hum-cancellation we can just swap the connections around to achieve the same result. Therefore:

If 2 coils are the same magnetic polarity and winding direction to begin with, flipping the magnet will put them out of phase with each other.

If 2 coils are the same magnetic polarity and winding direction to begin with, swapping the start and finish wires around will put them out of phase with each other.

If 2 coils are the same magnetic polarity and winding direction to begin with, flipping the magnet and swapping the wires around will bring the 2 pickups back into phase, and noise will be cancelled out because the noise is induced into the signal from the coil windings, the magnet doesn't play a role. So the noise signal is now out of phase between the two coils while the guitar signal is in phase. Coils made this way are referred to as being "reverse wound, reverse polarity" ("RWRP").

If 2 coils are the same magnetic polarity and winding direction to begin with, and we wire them out of phase (or use a phase switch), they will be hum-cancelling. They will not be hum-cancelling when in phase. The result is the same if we keep the start and finish the same but flip the magnet in one of the two.

Also note that 3 coils, with one of the 3 being RWRP, will be only partially hum cancelling.

Further note that the maximum hum-cancellation will result from two coils which are identical (in reality, they are never truly identical, but you get my point). The more dissimilar the coils are (in wire gauge, magnet type/field strength, number of windings, etc.), the less cancellation will occur.

Hope that helps.

[stevewf]

Thanks for the roundup, newey.

BTW, here's how the guitar looked once the wiring was done and the pickguard was installed. The previous brain is lying there next to it.

Since the photo, it's gotten pretty knobs, its (black) trem arm, and a string end trim. Still plays nice. Sounds about what one would expect. Soon I'll get it to the lucky guy (I mean, borrow a nicely-playing guitar for a couple months for free as an intro? Ding!)

Thanks, Nutz, for a bunch of help.

[newey]

stevewf-

Looks good, ready to shred!