Random Hero Mod

[humanbn]

Hello, here's the link to the diagram.

www.1728.com/guitar3.htm

I'm just wondering why the pickups are wired to the five way selector backwards. The neck pickup should be on the other side of the switch. Am I reading the diagram incorrectly? Or, is this necessary for the mod to work? Any one have experience with this mod?

[sumgai]

bean,

I can't seem to get the jist of what you're asking here.......

There is one, and only one, "side" of the 5-way selector switch. On that side, there are three terminals, usually intended as one for each pup's hot lead, and a common terminal. This is the standard way of showing (and hooking up) an older style switch (which is still being used today in a large number of guitars). wolf is really showing us only one "physical side" of that switch - the other physical side is implied to be either unused at all, or it has the more-or-less normal tone control wiring, omitted from the diagram for the sake of clarity.

That said, the positive terminals of all three pups are going directly to their respective terminals on that switch, so I gots ta aks ya, where da beef?



sumgai

[humanbn]

Let me see if I can clarify this. With the standard wiring of a Strat, the five way switch when in position 1, or all the way up, will permit the neck pickup to carry a current. This means that, respective to the switch being up, the neck pickup lead is going to the bottom of the switch. On this diagram it is going to the top of the switch. Does that make any more sense?

[pete12345]

That's the point of a schematic diagram- it only shows the connections themselves, not which way round the switch is orientated. Just wire it up so it works in the way you want it to. If you get it wrong on the first try just rotate the switch 180 degrees in the pickguard

Pete

[sumgai]

bean,

Pete's correct in his first statement, a schematic is not the physical item (the map is not the terrain). When you see a layout diagram that shows where to run each wire, the chances are good that the switch terminals are physically represented as in the real world. Very common examples are the terminals on control pots, and the terminals of push-pull switches mounted on on those controls.

The short lesson on how to tell the two apart: Layout diagrams usually have some sort of reference to that actual articles, like the outline of the pickguard, or even just outlines for the pickups themselves. Wires run all willy-nilly, seemingly like a rat's nest. OTOH, schematics are full of weird symbols, and every line that represents a wire runs at right angles (with an occasional off angle) - curves are rare indeed.

However (Pete, lissen up!), some switches are mounted into the pickguard rather close to the cavity's wall. If you attempt to physically reverse such a switch, then you might find that the p'guard screw holes won't line up - the switch is hitting against the body wood of the cavity wall. Re-locating the wires on the correct terminals is the only solution here, sorry to say. The moral of the story is, always allow a bit of extra wire length, just for this kind of miscalculation.

HTH



sumgai

[wolf]

Hi,
It seems you folks have been talking about the diagram on my website.
humanbn, I'm sorry if my diagram is difficult to understand.
Here's a link to the original which was drawn by RandomHero himself.


That should clear things up for you.

I am not being a smart aleck, I'm just saying that usually, not all possible instructions, parts, etc can be drawn or shown in a diagram.
But I think you learned a valuable lesson by starting that rewiring project - if this were easy then everybody would be doing it.

By the way, RandomHero has returned to Guitar Nuts2. I wonder if he can offer some help here.
(Incidentally, Random Hero's circuit is a very good modification to do. If you saw that You Tube video, you will see the huge difference series wiring makes.)

[humanbn]

Thanks Wolf. Appreciate the link.