rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 9, 2009 18:08:51 GMT -5
Hello this is my first post here. I did a bit of searching and didn't find the exact setup I was looking for. Anyway, I put this together. Any problems or suggestions. I intend to add rails (3) to a strat style guitar. I want to keep the 5-way and add 1 DPDT for each rail to put it's coils in series or parallel. I haven't decided if I want to put in push pull pots or individual toggles. I've also added a cap to allow tone control in the bridge only position.
|
|
|
Post by ChrisK on Feb 9, 2009 20:10:08 GMT -5
Your DPDT switches select only one coil or both in parallel. They do not select the pickup coils in series.
Also, it's not clear what the pots are actually doing since there are no terminals shown.
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 9, 2009 20:37:37 GMT -5
Thanks for the reply. The pots and 5-way are basically untouched (just the added cap for tone control in the bridge only position). If this setup hasn't been done before on here I can make that part easier to understand and repost. Swapped grounds on the switch? Updated drawing. I'm not accustomed to doing these things on paper (er, screen), I'm a field tech not an engineer (obviously). (By the way the color is just to make it easier to read, not representative of any company's wiring)
|
|
|
Post by ChrisK on Feb 9, 2009 22:19:01 GMT -5
You can download any pics in the Electronics Templates in "Design Modules" since that's what they're there for! Cut and paste to your heart's content.
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 9, 2009 22:25:15 GMT -5
I know there are a lot of possibilities with this setup, but I think this will give me the options I would probably use the most and wouldn't need mods to the pickguard if I use push/pull pots.
Thanks for the info, I'll clean it up a bit and post it back.
|
|
|
Post by ashcatlt on Feb 10, 2009 0:39:18 GMT -5
What is your intention with the bridge tone control?
Adding a capacitor where you've got it will get you a tone control on the bridge, but I'm not sure exactly why you've got the cap there. Are you deliberately trying to adjust the cutoff frequency of the filter when the bridge pickup is selected? If not, a simple wire jumper would work fine.
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 10, 2009 15:49:26 GMT -5
The idea for the extra cap came from the original guitar nuts site. See here: . I think that explains it just as well as I would. I may try it both ways to see how much difference I can hear with vs. without the additional cap.
|
|
|
Post by wolf on Feb 11, 2009 2:03:33 GMT -5
rlgoodWelcome to the board. Just to neaten up your diagrams a bit, there's no need to draw the coils: Also, when you save your images, save them as "gif" instead of "jpg". I drew that 1 diagram just to start you off a little. The colors are based upon Seymour Duncan's method of color coding. (I used theSeymour Duncan colors because you keep referring to "rails" and although a great many companies probably manufacture pickups called "rails", Seymour Duncan is probably the company to which you are referring).
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 11, 2009 7:16:09 GMT -5
Thanks, wolf.
Drawing the coils was actually just an easier way for me to work out what I wanted to do.
As far as the rails, probably just the cheap GFS rails for this project. This set up is going into an older (10 years or so) Peavey Raptor I have laying around. For a cheap-o plywood body guitar, it doesn't play bad, but the fact that it is a cheap-o plywood body makes it good for "hacking" so to speak!
When I get a few minutes I will redraw the whole thing. My diagram program won't seem to let me copy and paste from the existing drawings I found here in the forums. I use a program called Dia on Linux.
|
|
|
Post by cynical1 on Feb 11, 2009 9:49:12 GMT -5
My diagram program won't seem to let me copy and paste from the existing drawings I found here in the forums. I use a program called Dia on Linux. Dia...that's like drawing in Visio...that's gotta be fun... There's a few Linux packages available for drawing that might be an improvement on your current situation. Inkscape is a vector based drawing app, similar to Illustrator. Gimp has always been a good raster based graphics program with a Linux distribution. There's even a hack to make it act more like Photoshop called Gimpshop. I've never used CAD on Linux, but I found a page of links for CAD apps in Linux. Not sure if any of these are worth the effort, but figured I'd throw it in. Happy Trails Cynical One NOTE: Inkscape and Gimp are free open source. The CAD apps vary.
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 11, 2009 17:59:33 GMT -5
Dia is really not too bad for basic stuff. I really don't have a need for it most of the time. I could clean it up in gimp I guess. Dia just makes it easy to group several items and resize or move them all at once. I've never had much luck finding decent CAD apps for linux, but it has been several years since I looked too. Thanks for the info.
|
|
|
Post by wolf on Feb 11, 2009 21:36:37 GMT -5
Heck, I use MicroSoft Paint for all my diagrams, graphics, etc. It's not on the cutting edge of graphics design software but it's usually sufficient for basic diagrams.
|
|
|
Post by simes on Feb 17, 2009 9:49:51 GMT -5
I put three GFS rails PU's in my Strat and found that the bridge PU (10K) sounded like an HB in local series, but the other two (6K) sounded more like SC's. At the moment I've got the bridge PU in local S/P via a DPDT switch, but I left the others in local series, as I wouldn't like to thin them out any more. When I get hold of a 4PDT switch I'll use half of it for the bridge local S/P, and the other half (via a superswitch) to switch the middle/neck combination between series and parallel, giving a pseudo-HB sound at the neck.
On the other hand, if you have a hotter GFS set (15/10/10K, say), then you could use a 4PDT to do local S/P for the neck and bridge PU's and leave the middle one in local parallel. Or, if you bought the 15/10/6K set, put the 6K one in the middle in local series and the 10K one at the neck.
As far as I know, you can't get push-pull 4PDT's, but as I don't really use the tone pots, I just took one out and put the miniswitch in its place.
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 17, 2009 16:35:30 GMT -5
I actually decided to go with 3 DPDT switches so I can put each rail's coils in series or parallel independently. Doesn't look good, but it sounds good (I need to make a control plate to pretty it up). I went with the 15/10/6.5 set. You can definitely tell a difference when they are switched from parallel to series.
|
|
|
Post by ashcatlt on Feb 17, 2009 22:25:09 GMT -5
I definitely notice a difference in both volume and tone when switching from series to parallel on my Lil Killers. There's another difference when changing to the single coil. This is not much different, though, from the parallel, and I'd probably forgo those options if I had it to do again.
|
|
|
Post by newey on Feb 17, 2009 23:03:19 GMT -5
I can second Ash's thoughts. I have a Lil' Killer in the bridge of my "Esquire" type guitar, wired on the 3 way for coil split/parallel/series. The parallel coils and coil split settings are virtually indistinguishable. The small, identical coils in these dual rail pickups don't give a lot of tonal variation when split.
|
|
rlgood
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
|
Post by rlgood on Feb 18, 2009 17:39:59 GMT -5
I skipped the single option. I figued I already have one set up with S/S/S and one with S/S/H so..... I decided to leave out the tone control for the bridge too.
|
|