HSH wiring problem

[68injunhed]

I hate to have my first post be a question, but I have been searching unsuccessfully for quite some time for an answer to my problem. 

I installed a Megaswitch E in my Ibanez S570 completely wired as shown in the instructions that came with it. I had to modify the plastic plate that the switch mounts to to get it in the guitar, and then wired it up, only to realize it is backwards compared to what a normal 5-way would be. This is because I had to physically reverse the switch from the way it was intended to be installed in the guitar(No choices there, it won't fit any other way). So what would normally be the bridge, position 1, is the neck, and so on.

So, I switched the wires for neck and bridge hot on the switch, as well as the splits, and got it switching "right", but now I have another issue.

The 2 and 4 positions are not only out of phase and not hum cancelling, but the wrong coil is on for both humbuckers. The same is true for the 3 position.


Here is what I have:  Coils numbered this way: Neck--->54   3   21<---Bridge    

 Position             Coil# I have now            What I want    
1(bridge HB)         1&2                                   1&2

2                        2&3                                   1&3

3                        2&4                                   1&5 

4                        3&5                                   3&4

5(neck HB)           4&5                                   4&5


Pickups are Dimarzio, Norton bridge, Red Velvet that is supposed to be RWRP, and Gravity Storm neck, humbuckers wired per Dimarzio instructions, red hot, black and white together, green and bare to ground. Red Velvet is white hot, black ground.    

Any suggestions? I was thinking I could swap the wires around on the humbuckers to get the proper coils activated, but wasn't sure about the phase issues.

[JohnH]

Hi and welcome to GN2. Its always possible to untangle these type of problems, but be prepared to swap wires and possibly rotate pickups physically.

first fundamental fact, to go and test: Any pair of coils which are capable of giving you in-phase and humcancelling will always have opposite magnetic polarity, ie a north and a south. It doesn't matter which way round but you need one of each in each pair.

So job 1 is to get another magnet (eg another pickup, a fridge magnet or a compass), and list the magnetic polarity of coils 1 to 5. If you cant tell absolutely north and south, just assign it arbitrarily to one and let us know which are the same and which are different.

John

[68injunhed]

Thanks John. Here is what I came up with.  Neck---> 54  3 21<---Bridge

1-south
2-north
3-south...A little irritated about this, was supposed to be RWRP
4-south
5-north

I have it wired as follows to get the proper switching, using bridge as position 1.

Humbucker/single-coil/humbucker

Point # Wire assignment

1 middle pickup hot wire

2 bridge pickup hot wire

3 output to volume pot

4 ground to volume pot

5 bridge pickup coil tap

6 neck pickup coil tap

7 neck pickup hot wire

this is with the switch physically flipped, by necessity. It is designed to be wired as follows:



Point # Wire assignment

1 middle pickup hot wire

2 neck pickup hot wire

3 output to volume pot

4 ground to volume pot

5 neck pickup coil tap

6 bridge pickup coil tap

7 bridge pickup hot wire

which is supposed to give you this switching:


As I said in my earlier post, when I wired it per the instructions, my switching was "backwards" from what you would consider standard, hence why I switched the bridge/neck wiring points.

[JohnH]

good - just looking at your polarities, all the coils are in the right place to give you hum-cancelling pairs with the pairs listed as intended on the original post. so some wire swapping needed. will address later...

What are the manufacturer of each pickup?

[68injunhed]

They are all DiMarzio. I have the humbuckers wired currently as recommended by DiMarzio, red hot, black and white soldered together, green and bare to ground. Single is White hot, black ground.

[newey]

68-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

You described the problem as follows:

The 2 and 4 positions are not only out of phase and not hum cancelling, but the wrong coil is on for both humbuckers. The same is true for the 3 position.

Now, the Megaswitch E (as with all the Megaswitch variations)is designed to make certain internal connections so as to allow certain wiring combinations. You want it wired so as to give the combinations shown on the upper-right hand diagram from the instructions, although you have numbered the coils and Schaller uses letters. But, comparing your "wish list" to the upper-right diagram shows them to be the same.

The list of what you actually have is what we would expect, given the rotation of the switch, and your substitutions of the neck and bridge hot wires.

For example, at position 4, when the switch is wired "right way around", you should have coils C + D (or 3 + 4, if you prefer). But you have instead coils 3 + 5, which corresponds to coils A + C (or 1 + 3)if it were at position 2, (that is, if you hadn't flipped it).

IOW, the Schaller switch is making the internal connections that are "designed in" to get the correct coils- but they're the wrong coils because you flipped the switch and then rewired bridge for neck. If you had not done so, you would have all the correct combinations you wanted, just selected "backwards" on the switch (an annoyance, to be sure!).

So, John will get you on the right track to get this squared away. But flipping the switch and rewiring the neck "hot" for the bridge "hot" doesn't explain the out-of-phase problem. If it was in phase before you swapped the neck and bridge wires, it should have likewise been in phase afterward.

Now, in your quote previously, I wasn't clear on what you meant by:

The same is true for the 3 position.

Do you mean that, in this position, you have the wrong coils (2 + 4 instead of 1 + 5)? Or, do you mean that this position also sounds like it's out-of-phase, and that therefore positions 2, 3 and 4 all sound OOP?

If it was just positions 2 and 4 which were sounding OOP, then a swap of the middle pickup wires, swapping ground for hot and vice versa, would likely solve the problem. But if position 3 is also OOP, then nothing here is making much sense to me.

[68injunhed]

Sorry, I meant that in position 3, the wrong coils are selected. It is coils 2 and 4 instead, which are hum cancelling, and seem to have just the normal drop you would expect going from series to parallel. Positions 2 and 4on the switch definitely have that hollow sound of out of phase, and are noticeably lower in volume than position 3.


ETA-The 2 and 4 positions were not hum cancelling with the way I had it wired originally either. I'm pretty sure they were out of phase as well, but to be honest, I can't remember, I just know they were noisy. It was about 1 in the morning and I was getting quite irritated.

[newey]

OK, well if it's possible that they have been OOP all along, then things begin to make some sense. Still, given that these are all DiMarzio pickups, it is odd that wiring according to DM wiring colors would leave them OOP.

But it now sounds like just the mid pup is OOP with the HBs.

You said that:

Red Velvet is white hot, black ground.

I assume that is how you have it wired.

[68injunhed]

Yes, the white from the middle pickup is wired as the hot.

[JohnH]

OK, Ive thought some more and read it again, and changed my mind somewhat.

Here's what I think you need to do to get it all the right coils, hum-cancelling and in phase.

Take the bridge and neck pickups and rotate them physically by 180 degrees, without rewiring them. This will then give you the right coils in the right places, But position 2 and 4 will still be humming and out of phase. Fix that by also reversing the wires on the middle pickup.

If there is a physical problem with moving the pickups 180 degrees, or if you just want it to be non humming and in phase and aren't so worried about which coils are paired, you can keep the pickups orientated as they are and just do the wire swap on the M pup.

[newey]

On the DiMarzio website, there are a couple of diagrams showing the use of a RWRP middle pup, and it appears that those are the opposite, black to hot. So, therein may lie the problem with the middle pup being OOP.

And I believe John is right about rotating the pickups. If you were using another type of switch (like a Superswitch, for example), you could have any coils you wanted in any position you wished, as such a switch has 4 independently-wireable poles. Your switch is more limited as it is internally connected so as to do certain things. It can also be made to do other things as well, but there are limits due to the internal configuration of the switch.

But (and this is primarily directed at John), note that lugs 5 and 6 are designated to take the "coil tap" for each HB, that is, the series junction (black/white in the case of DM pickups). 68injunhed indicated that he swapped those around when he rewired the switch, so that he now gets the coil cuts in the correct switch positions, but with the wrong coils.

Then, lug 4 goes to ground. Presumably, this is only a ground used to ground the series junctions of the HBs. So, if it were wired to the hot instead, we should get the opposite coils from each HB, as desired.

Mind you, this is a bit of guesswork. But if rotating the coils doesn't float yer boat, you might try that to see. And, as mentioned, swap the middle pup wires around.

[68injunhed]

Thanks a bunch guys.

I'll switch the blk/wht wires on the middle pup. If I like the tones there, I'll probably just leave it, as both my humbuckers have the DiMarzio Dual Resonance and sound different depending on which way the screw coil is pointed. 

I might try it out at some point just to see what the difference is, but I doubt that 1/2" or so of physical location on the guitar is gonna make or break anything.

[JohnH]

Jan 3, 2014 6:42:51 GMT -5 newey said:

But (and this is primarily directed at John), note that lugs 5 and 6 are designated to take the "coil tap" for each HB, that is, the series junction (black/white in the case of DM pickups). 68injunhed indicated that he swapped those around when he rewired the switch, so that he now gets the coil cuts in the correct switch positions, but with the wrong coils.

Then, lug 4 goes to ground. Presumably, this is only a ground used to ground the series junctions of the HBs. So, if it were wired to the hot instead, we should get the opposite coils from each HB, as desired.

Mind you, this is a bit of guesswork. But if rotating the coils doesn't float yer boat, you might try that to see. And, as mentioned, swap the middle pup wires around.

The thing is, even as currently wired, it is using the correct humbucker coils when coil-cut, which are the only ones capable of forming hum-cancelling pairs with the middle pickup because they are the required north polarity to go with the middle south. Phase has come out wrong, which will be fixed by reversing M, and also these correct coils are in a different physical position, which may not be a big deal.

I actually didn't consider how the switch worked but I'm sure you have it sussed. I only looked at the polarity info and the table what happens and what's wanted.

[68injunhed]

Switched the black/white leads from the middle pup, and voila! No more issues.

Thanks again guys. Now to get it set back up so I can play it for a couple weeks and see if I want to flip the pups the next time I change strings.

[JohnH]

Jan 3, 2014 15:56:02 GMT -5 68injunhed said:

Switched the black/white leads from the middle pup, and voila! No more issues.

Thanks again guys. Now to get it set back up so I can play it for a couple weeks and see if I want to flip the pups the next time I change strings.

Great! That's how we do that!

[68injunhed]

Ok, new question. The hollow, noisy, out of phase sound is gone, but now that I have all the strings on, the 2 and 4 positions are muffled sounding compared to even position 3, and not even close to position 1 or 5. No brightness at all, muddy and muffled.

What would be the cause of this, or is it just the middle pickup? I have them all adjusted for height.

[newey]

It must just be that middle pickup, everything else has been dealt with. When you say you have it adjusted for height, some fine-tuning of the relative pickup heights may help- a bit up on the middle, a bit down on both HBs.

[68injunhed]

I'm thinking there is just something wrong with this pickup. I messed with pickup height a bunch, and can't really get any high end in the 2 and 4 positions. Given the high relative treble response of the Red Velvet shown on DiMarzio's site, I'm at a loss as to what could cause it unless there is something wrong with it.

I'll give them a call Monday. I want to talk to them about a possible tradeout on the Gravity Storm neck pickup anyway. It sounds good enough with gain for leads, but clean it really lacks clarity on the bottom end.

[JohnH]

Do you have a multimeter? it might reveal something to measure resistance across the input jack in each setting, with all pots at max

[68injunhed]

I measured across the sleeve and tip of a cable, needle meter, not digital:

Bridge HB~12k
2~3.4k
3~3k
4~3.4k
Neck HB~11.8k

The split resistance seems low? I have no idea what they are supposed to be though.

[JohnH]

Jan 4, 2014 12:38:29 GMT -5 68injunhed said:

I measured across the sleeve and tip of a cable, needle meter, not digital:

Bridge HB~12k
2~3.4k
3~3k
4~3.4k
Neck HB~11.8k

The split resistance seems low? I have no idea what they are supposed to be though.

Those do seem to be fine. You are measuring the combined resistances of the coils, plus volume pot in parallel, which is likely to be 500k. So the basic humbuckers are revealed to be fairly hot, with Ohms a bit more than the reading, at about 12.3k and 12k, allowing that the volume pot reduces the measurement a bit.

Position 3 has one coil from each humbucker, in parallel. So with each Hb coil being around 6k or slightly more, the combination is 3k.

In positions 2 and 4, the 3.4k reading shows that the middle pickup is a higher resistance than a humbucker coil, and the numbers suggest about 7.8k, which is quite credible but it's a fairly hot single.

It all looks like its working.

All I could suggest to address dullness, other than changing pickups, would be to try a no-load tone pot to get some more load off the circuit. This will add some more highs back - just a tad. You can test if this is likely to help just by disconnecting one end of the tone pot or tone capacitor.

Also, if you use a longer cable, try a 10' one - which can make a big difference.

If the dullness problem gets more marked at lower volume, add a treble bleed circuit (150k and 1nF in parallel, between hot outer and centre volume pot lugs)

cheers
J