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Post by thetragichero on Sept 4, 2009 21:13:56 GMT -5
a buddy of mine gave me his squier chinese strat
i love how the neck feels and the sound when it's unplugged, so i decided to gut it and make it usable (the tone controls didn't work and the pickups sounded awful)
my first step was putting in a graphtech nut and shielding (this part is done)
still gathering the parts but my plan is to build it: humbucker (dragonfire equivalent of high output/distortion 'bucker)/p-90(generic/cheap)/fender american standard strat single coil
i plan on standard wiring, besides a DPDT push/pull volume pot which i want to 1. tap just the south coil of the bridge and 2. force the that coil regardless of the 5-way selector switch (basically, tap the coil and bridge-on)
is there any reason i can't wire the humbucker with North + going to ground instead of South +, for ease of figuring out how to wire it?
am i overthinking this?
i appreciate any comments/thoughts/suggestions/etc!
xoxo
--chris
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Post by ChrisK on Sept 4, 2009 22:37:21 GMT -5
Do you have technical information on all of these pickups. What are the magnetic polarities and the wiring for each?
So you want B/B+M/M/M+N/N and want the DPDT to select either the full (presumed intra-pickup series) humbucker in the bridge and bridge+middle positions, or want the tapped bridge humbucker south coil to always be on?
Until we know the technical information for all of the pickups (which relates to humbucking inter-pickup combinations), this is irrelevant.
Why do you want the south coil to be selected on the bridge humbucker? Is this the screw or slug coil?
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Post by thetragichero on Sept 5, 2009 9:24:40 GMT -5
neither of the single coils are reverse wound/reverse polarity
standard wiring (according to the instruction sheet) for the humbucker is North start (green) -> Hot, North finish + South finish -> twisted together, South start (black) + bare wire -> Ground
correct!
the south coil is closest to the bridge and i read it gave better attack than tapping the north coil of the humbucker
i think i answered at least ONE of your questions?
xoxo
--chris
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Post by newey on Sept 5, 2009 10:18:00 GMT -5
Unless both pickups are from the same manufacturer (and even then, no guarantees), this statement is undefined and meaningless. Reversed from what? Some testing may be in order. Opposites attract.  Perhaps. What ChrisK is saying is that it may be more useful to select the coil that would provide for hum-cancellation when in combo with the SCs. I agree. If the 2 SCs are RWRP with respect to each other, then you can only get hum-canceling with one or the other SC no matter which coil you split off the bridge HB. If that's the case, to get all positions to be humcancelling, you'd need to be able to select either the N or S coil from the HB- which can be done if needed. |
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Post by thetragichero on Sept 5, 2009 10:32:25 GMT -5
i only REALLY care about using the split bridge coil with the neck pickup so i have the option for that tele sound, ya know?
even if it hums like a cheap hooker, anything is an improvement over the stock setup where i only ever used the middle pickup because the other two were too weak...
how would i check that the neck single coil and one of the humbucker coils were reverse wound wrt each other?
xoxo
--chris
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Post by ChrisK on Sept 5, 2009 14:30:56 GMT -5
As newey sez;
Reverse wound is meaningless until magnetic polarities are determined.
Reversing the winding is usually as trivial as swapping the two coil wires.
First, see if the tops of the pole pieces attract (do not use the pole pieces on the bottom of the pickups); for instance, if the neck and middle pickups magnetically attract, they are reverse polarity and can usually be combined in a hum canceling configuration. If they repel, they cannot without a magnet(s) reversal on ONE of the pickups.
The bar magnets in a P-90 can usually easily be reversed. Check in here before you try this though.
The 6 slug magnets in a typical Fender single coil can only be reversed by remagnetization to the opposite polarity.
For optimum hum reduction in the M+N position, you would want these pickups to have magnetic poles that attract.
The bridge pickup will have a coil of each magnetic polarity.
You're not "tapping" a pickup coil, but "selecting" a pickup's coil.
The coil closest to the bridge is usually the screw coil which has the brightest, thinest sound. The slug coil is usually used for single coil selection due to it sounding closer to (but NEVER the same as) a Strat single coil.
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Post by thetragichero on Sept 5, 2009 15:15:20 GMT -5
okay the polarities work and i will be using the slug coil now, if i understand it correctly, the schematic should look like this (pardon the mspaint/possible misuse of terminology...):  xoxo --chris |
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Post by ChrisK on Sept 5, 2009 22:50:17 GMT -5
What does this mean?
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Post by thetragichero on Sept 6, 2009 9:52:43 GMT -5
the neck single coil and the slug coil of the humbucker are opposite polarity
moving on...
xoxo
--chris
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Post by newey on Sept 6, 2009 11:15:06 GMT -5
Trag- I believe your diagram would work if you added a jumper between the lower lugs, connecting the 2 poles. But don't take my word for it, wait for others to weigh in . . . This would then shunt one coil, but we can't tell if it's the slug coil that's left active or not, since you haven't either shown the coils or designated the wires from them. You don't need a DPDT switch to do this. If you have not already done so, our friend Wolf has an excellent treatise on coil cut switching on his website. This is required reading. |
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Post by ChrisK on Sept 6, 2009 12:52:25 GMT -5
Good, you indicated that you wanted a neck + bridge combo. It's good that that will be hum canceling.
Is the middle pickup also of opposite magnetic polarity compared to the neck?
Is the middle pickup two wire or single conductor plus shield?
The information related to the complete bridge pickup is intertwined among the various responses and somewhat inferred.
In summary;
Your drawing selects either the bridge pickup in intra-pickup series, or shorts the south (screw) coil and hence selects the north (slug) coil to be always on.
For this functionality, it is correct as shown.
However, I would not mix terminology, I would call the black wire the bridge "-" (as you do), but also would call the green output wire bridge "+".
I guess if one calls the output "bridge Hot", one might have to call the signal return "bridge Not".
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Post by thetragichero on Sept 7, 2009 17:37:12 GMT -5
yes, middle pickup is opposite polarity of neck single coil as well
it's a single conductor plus the shield
i should be able to get this puppy all wired up next weekend or so, so i'll report back when it's all together
thanks a lot!
xoxo
--chris
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Post by thetragichero on Sept 20, 2009 16:58:09 GMT -5
hey guys i finally got this back together (starting a new job delayed me a lot more than i would have preferred  ) and it sounds great! i also decided to put in graphtech saddles as the final piece to hopefully end my string breakage issues (new nut, saddles, and roller string trees is probably overkill but as long as i've got the guitar in pieces...) here's a picture, although it looks like just about every other strat...  thanks a lot for the help fellas, and i'm sure i'll have many more questions xoxo --chris |
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Post by newey on Sept 20, 2009 18:25:43 GMT -5
Looking good, Trage- Glad it is to your liking.  Now, clean up your work area . . . ;D |
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) and it sounds great!