AllParts 5way Tele Switch: adaptable for HH strat?

[vegetablejoe]

Hi!

I used to have a tele with an AllParts 5-way switch (I can't recall the part number as I don't have it with me) which gave me the ff. tones:

1 - bridge
2 - neck + bridge, out of phase (parallel?)
3 - neck + bridge, parallel
4 - neck + bridge, series
5 - neck

Since the tele pups were 2-wire pups, I am hoping I can just swap those for two 2-wire humbuckers (Seths or 59's) and transplant the whole wiring into an H-H strat.

Is this possible? Am I missing grounding issues here?

Thanks.

Jaime G.

[sumgai]

vj,

You appear to have thought this through a little deeper than the usual Nut-wannabe.

At the short end of the story, you're really just treating the pickups like little "black boxes".... there's two wires coming out, and anything with two wires will act the same in your switching circuit. However, with metal-covered humbuckers, such as you're contemplating, you do have that bit about one of the covers being ungrounded while the pups are in series.

This can be "left alone" and tolerated, if you never touch the pickup covers at all. There's still a chance of the cover actually picking up some humming or buzzing, since it's now part of the "hot" side of the signal, but that's something you'll have to experiment with for yourself, to see what you can tolerate (if it does act like an antenna).

Or you can open the pickup and disconnect any wire that might be connected to the metal frame (and thus to the cover, when assembled). That operation was discussed (and much cussed!) here: Re-wiring a Humbucker. For sure, this will guarantee that your pickup will remain quiet at all times, even in series.

HTH



sumgai

[vegetablejoe]

sumgai,

thanks for your reply confirming what i've thought through. I will do this in 2 steps then, leaving out the grounding solution first and hearing first if I can tolerate the hum.

Regards,

Jaime G.

[vegetablejoe]

I've still not been able to do this, as I can't find the wiring diagram that originally came with the AllParts 5-way tele switch. Browsing through the AllParts website, it seems the diagram is no longer available online for free.

Does anyone have a copy of the orig. diagram which he can share? Thanks in advance.

Jaime

[wolf]

Another problem with a chrome-covered humbucker (besides its acting like an antenna and producing much hum when touched) is that if you can't unground it, when a string hits the pickup, it will create a dead short. Not that this is dangerous but it will cause the volume to go to zero for that moment when the 2 touch. (This will occur when the pickups are in series or out of phase.)

[newey]

Veggie:

I assume this is the diagram you are referring to (courtesy of Deaf Eddie's site):



This uses the "Half Superswitch", which is available from Allparts, and which is, I assume, the switch to which you refer back in your original post on this thread.

Note that the OOP setting is series OOP, not parallel as you surmised it to be- but the SOOP is probably what you want anyway.

As you noted, with 2 wire HBs it would get wired just the same as with 2 SCs.

[vegetablejoe]

Thanks, newey! That is probably the one I need. Now I just need to find where I kept the switch and compare the lugs...

wolf, thanks for the heads-up on the possible short. Now that a diagram is available, I just "have to" try it out! Hum and short or not... Hahaha... I wonder what they call this type of affliction!

[sumgai]

One thing to note.....

The drawing above (attributed to Deaf Eddie's site) shows a full-fledged superswitch, no abbreviations about it. Only 3 of the 4 poles are used, but a careful analysis will reveal that the job requested simply can't be done with only two poles.

HTH




sumgai

[newey]

SG's right, that's the full SS- I didn't look close enough.