cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 4, 2016 18:28:29 GMT -5
Hi all, I've long admired the quality of this forum, and the impressive creations detailed here, and now I've decided to participate. I doubt I can offer much helpful advice, but I hope you all will enjoy what pictures I share of my projects, and share in their success. I am modifying my telecaster to something like John H.'s version of the Tone Monster circuit. One part of this circuit that I wonder about is the rotary switch. Now, I'm not wiring mine the same at all, but my question is very general. When I want to have only one coil connected, is it better to have the disconnected coil's "out" to ground, or to nothing? It would seem to me that grounding it would be eappropriate, but position 4 of the diagram(coil 2) has the other coil's in and out both disconnected. Which is better? The way I see it, either would work, but connecting out to ground might reduce some noise. I think I should mention, I'm referring to a typical "hot" wire of a pickup as in. I don't know if that's technically correct. Here's some images of the work in progress. Warning: contains ugly routing! I couldn't get the images in order, but you can see what I've done. m.imgur.com/a/8AzGs Thanks for reading! P.S. Filing the pickguard took me 7 hours, whew.
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Post by JohnH on Jun 4, 2016 20:49:53 GMT -5
Hi cheap and welcome to GN2.
Good luck with your project. Regarding the question, its fine to have a disconnected coil with the hot wire floating, if the other is either grounded or itself disconnected. No need to ground both. A different but related condition which, although not a show-stopper, we avoid when we can, is to have the hot to output, and the ground disconnected. That is called ' hanging from hot', and can sometimes add a bit of noise.
So what kind of wiring schematic are you thinking of?
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 4, 2016 21:56:30 GMT -5
John,
Thanks for the info. I realize the hot can either be hanging or disconnected, I was wondering more if both ends of a coil hanging is as good as at least one connected to ground. The way I see it you want one end or the other connected for ground/shielding purposes. Though your answer made this clear. I'm going to make sure one end is connected to ground when the coil is off.
The circuit I'm considering is fairly simple. It's essentially the same as the diagram, but without phase or blend controls. The humbucker will be north/parallel/series/south. I'm going to have no standard tone control, just a bass cut. Unfortunately the potentiometer I've got now for my tone control is 250k. My capacitor... Who knows. I'm guessing it's either .047 or .010. I'm aware the recommendations for bass cut controls are nearly the opposite of what I've got. I'm going to try it out nonetheless to see if I can get a usable tone. If not, I'll probably just disconnect or revert the pot. If I can convert a bass cut to no load, that'd be ideal but I don't think that's possible.
I'm considering adding a 4th pickup in the future, right up against the p90, a lipstick tube, danolectro sized. But I want to start with this. I really have no idea how I'd wire that. I might just be lazy and add the final pickup with no capability to be run in series with anything.
The biggest dillemma I have is that I saw the active buffer posted in your LPmax instructions, and I'm horribly tempted! That sounds like it would do wonders for the tone of the bridge solo. I do like some high end. However, I read that you found it diminished the tonal differences between series and parallel, leaving mostly the volume difference. Well, that's enough to at least make me put off the addition until I've had time to play with what I've got.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 14, 2016 18:18:50 GMT -5
Alright, I need help again. I've got my humbucker wired to a rotary switch with the options inner/parallel/series/outer. Sweet. But I wonder about phase. Using the multimeter connected to the two wires going out from the switch, should the screwdriver test have the same result or opposite result for each coil? I think it should be the same, in which case I messed up, but I do know what to change. Luckily I've set up the pickup with 5 leads, so I can change it pretty much hassle free. The issue is pretty independent of the rest of the circuit, also.
Anyway hopefully I can get this off the dining room floor and plugged into an amp soon.
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Post by newey on Jun 15, 2016 6:06:45 GMT -5
The two coils of a HB will be of opposite magnetic polarities; in order to be hum-cancelling one coil must be both reverse-wound and reverse-polarity to the other (RWRP). So you have a "North" coil and a "South" coil, and they will be opposite on the pull-off test.
Note that there is no uniform definition for what "North" or "South" is among pickup manufacturers (i.e., every magnet has a North and a South Pole- is it called a "North" coil if the North pole of the magnet is pointing up, or down?). So, when using different brands of pickups, testing is the only way to be sure that 2 given pickups will be in phase.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 15, 2016 11:36:52 GMT -5
newey - I was under the impression that opposite polarity and opposite winding would make the coils in-phase with each other, and therefore have the same result from the test. One reason I think this is because when testing my other two pivkups, which are hum-cancelling, I got the same result for each. But, I had just modified my neck pickup, so I could have messed that up too. Sorry to doubt you, but are you sure?
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Post by newey on Jun 15, 2016 21:18:20 GMT -5
No, you're right to doubt me, they are the same. I plead insufficient caffeine intake at the time . . .
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 15, 2016 23:22:06 GMT -5
No problem amigo, You've seen much worse from me in the tonewood thread... Still trying to figure that out.
Anyway, to update the project, as lame as it sounds, I'm having trouble cramming the wires into the body cavities. So, I'm enlarging the cavities, and shortening the wires. I originally wanted longer wires so I could remove the control plate and pickguard separately to work on the wiring later, but that backfired. Hopefully I can finish the project tomorrow, tgough shortening the wires means redoing half of my joints.
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Post by newey on Jun 16, 2016 5:56:38 GMT -5
What type and gauge of wire are you using?
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 16, 2016 8:56:42 GMT -5
22 stranded for the bulk of it, 22 solid for some of the very short wires. There's just nowhere for the slack to go, really. I've routed more and more out of this guitar too many times. Anyway, I think shortening the wires will do it. Unfortunately another problem is my rotary switch is too wide to fit comfortably in the control cavity, so I've got to make that wider too. Hopefully I don't accidentally widen it enough that the control plate doesn't covef it completely. Not much needs to be taken out, so it'll probably be fine.
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Post by reTrEaD on Jun 16, 2016 12:37:11 GMT -5
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 16, 2016 12:58:18 GMT -5
I'm gonna make this rotary switch fit, even if it means a visible hole under the control plate. I'm just that cheap, forgive me. I don't think it'll come to that though, it nearly fits as-is. I think it already looks pretty offensive anyway. Actually, I'm thinking of doing something really ugly, adding a contour or two without refinishing... Poor life choices every day here at guitarnutz!
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Post by reTrEaD on Jun 16, 2016 14:43:20 GMT -5
I'm just that cheap, forgive me. No need for forgiveness. The path a person chooses is dependent on their own priorities. One size does not fit all. Options are.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 16, 2016 15:07:46 GMT -5
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 21, 2016 20:33:35 GMT -5
Alright, I need help. Here's the issue. I'm using a telecaster for this, and I can't easily seperate the bridge pickup into a 3 lead one. What's happening because of this is very strange, and definitely bad. If I leave the bridge pickup wired as is, I get noise when I touch tye bridge plate, and if I attach the black directly to ground, I can't get the neck or middle when in series. It seems like a quick fix for this would be to reverse the direction of the series behaviour. Then I can attach the black to ground and still have full functionality... but I have no idea how to do this. I'm using this diagram: I've removed the blend by deleting all the wires attached to it except the blue ones, and soldering those together. If it's absolutely necessary I'll just bite the bullet and modify the pickup. If anybody can offer guidance I'd appreciate it.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 21, 2016 22:08:22 GMT -5
By the way, the wires fit now.
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Post by newey on Jun 22, 2016 5:38:33 GMT -5
Cheap-
Wait, I thought this project had a bridge HB? Is this now a regular Tele bridge pickup with the grounded baseplate?
Anyway, I'm not sure that what you are suggesting as the fix here is doable or not. I suspect that "not" is the case.
If it is indeed a regular Tele pickup, your surmise that the bridge pickup's baseplate is the culprit is correct. I think you're going to be left with having to modify the pickup. But let's get a second opinion before you go that route, maybe someone else will "see" a solution that I don't see.
Ordinarily, one end of a "series chain" would be permanently wired to ground, and what you suggest would be possible. But here, the phase switch and the individual on/off switches complicate things. We don't really have just one "series chain", we have several possible ones depending on which pickups are selected.
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Post by JohnH on Jun 22, 2016 6:57:25 GMT -5
I think you have identified the issue, if one of the bridge coil wires is being permanently grounded. The best fix will be if you can separate the grounding of the bridge plate from the coil wires. Then you can follow the diagram as it is, and separately ground the plate. But if not, then take the bridge coil with its plate, and the neck pickup including its phase switch, and swap them with each other. ie two wires swap with two wires. The on/off switch functions will also change of course, so youd want to physically move them. Its ok to lose the blender. Actually, since building this 10 years ago, I have never again seen suitable pots for making that blender design. If you want to see another version of this circuit without it, see our Brian May - Red Special thread: Brian May - series/parallelYou could build that, losing two phase switches and relabelling the B and N, since gain, N is shown as the grounded one.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 22, 2016 10:48:39 GMT -5
newey - my humbucker is in the middle. I've got a single-humbucker-p90 setup. I feel really optimistic about this setup providing a lot of usable tones. I'm hoping I can get a good lead tone from the humbucker soloed even though it's not in the bridge position. You can find pictures of the project in the link in the original post. JohnH - Thanks for the advice. If I'm understanding correctly, I just need to swap the neck and bridge pickups(bringing the phase switch along with my neck pickup) and move the switches. I don't know why I couldn't figure out something so obvious myself. I'm now regretting using that solid core wiring aroundthea switches. Well, I'll take another look at the pickup to see if the mod is possible. This is seeming easiest, though since I'm planning on swapping this pickup for an alnico one in the future, which I know also doesn't have 3 leads, it's unfortunate. Just out of curiousity, how do you guys think the series direction would affect tone? I think I remember seeing a comment on this in the original tone monster thread, but I can't find it. I imagine the first pickup in the signal chain would have the most "presence" in the overall sound? I'd think bridge being first would be advantageous then. Of course, brian may had it neck first, and it sounded amazing. Anyways, I got the day off today so I'll let you know how it works out.
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Post by newey on Jun 22, 2016 11:15:36 GMT -5
The order of pickups in series should not matter. 1 X 2 X 3 = 3 X 2 X 1
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 22, 2016 11:21:00 GMT -5
Well, it makes sense when you put it that way... But I was thinking about it in terms of each pickup acting as a capacitor. So I guess I take back what I said, actually, the last pickup ought to have the most unadulterated contribution to the sound. As far as volume goes I understand it would be the same.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 22, 2016 13:22:31 GMT -5
I don't know why I thought this would be difficult. I guess I thought the pickup lead would be soldered directly to the base plate. Thanks for the help guys.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 22, 2016 21:21:44 GMT -5
I figured out the problem with the circuit. There needs to be a wire from the top left node of the bridge switch to the bottom right node of the middle switch. The diagram I was working off doesn't have this wire, but the brian may diagram does.
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Post by JohnH on Jun 23, 2016 16:12:50 GMT -5
I figured out the problem with the circuit. There needs to be a wire from the top left node of the bridge switch to the bottom right node of the middle switch. The diagram I was working off doesn't have this wire, but the brian may diagram does. Did that fix the problem? If it did, well done! But if not, or if you havnt tried it yet, then I'll point out that the wiring diagrams linked so-far on this thread have all been successfully built by a number of people. Although they use similar switching concepts, they are not exactly the same so taking a wire from one and putting on the other is not likely to be a fix. If you are using the Tonemonster2 wiring, should just check how the 'blender' pot has been deleted. The left side (which did the series blending) of the pot gets removed, with the two red 2.7k resuistors. and alao the thick green wire. The right side (for parallel blending) gets removed along with the other associated resistors and caps. But keep the pink wire and three blue wires that went to the right pot side and join them all together. Then, having noted what is then joined to what, you could if you wish, join those points by a more direct or convenient route.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 23, 2016 16:21:26 GMT -5
Yeah, it worked. The diagram I was working off of wasn't exactly what I was building. Removing the blender control put me in somewhat unknown waters. The Brian May diagram is a lot closer to what I built. If I had known about that diagram sooner I doubt I would have run into any problems.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 24, 2016 12:36:29 GMT -5
The order of anything in series makes absolutely no difference at all, as long as there's nothing in parallel between them, and even then "it depends".
I saw there was some talk about whether leaving the ground side of a coil connected (and disconnecting hot) was better than disconnecting both. That reminded me of a very long strange conversation we had a while back, but I can't remember enough details to effectively search at the moment. Pretty sure we proved empirically that it makes no practical difference either way.
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 25, 2016 11:08:13 GMT -5
Thanks for the info. Here's a picture of the finished product.
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Post by JohnH on Jun 25, 2016 15:08:23 GMT -5
Well that looks great! I like the black and crème colouring and the zebra arrangement of the various coils. All working now? So what is the most interesting non-standard coil setting you have found so far? Also, what model was the basic Tele guitar that it's built into?
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Post by cheap on Jun 25, 2016 16:02:56 GMT -5
Thanks, John. I haven't really spent enough time with it to be too familiar with it, but I like the "strat" bridge + middle in series, and I like all in series with neck out of phase. It's a very midrangy position that gives me a good AM radio vibe.
Honestly, my favorite position is probably still the neck solo. I think this will change as I get more familiar with the options. The guitar is an sx furrian. The paint is not original, it's summer squash rustoleum painter's touch 2-in-1 satin. There's no clear coat. I've also leveled the frets. It's a great guitar with a great neck. The bridge is very solid, and tuning stability is great. The tuners aren't the smoothest but they stay in tune well. I guess I need to lube them up.
The coolest thing about this setup to me is being able to have a strat and tele in the same guitar in terms of hum-cancelling positions. The bass contour works horribly, thanks to the 250k pot and 47 cap. I guess I'll revert it to a standard tone for now, though I think I'll make it no-load. I might buy proper values in the future and replace it. I like the sound of the reverend buckshot. I also saw how both controls can be used in combination interestingly, but I might find it a bit overwhelming. Certainly the options I already have are pretty overwhelming.
Currently the pickups are a stock p90, a gfs pro series alnico II, and a stock bridge. I'm going to replace the bridge at some point with a gfs 1952 overwound. I'll also add a danolectro sized gfs lipstick tube next to the p90(right next to it) at some point. I guess that seems excessive, but I think it'll let me cut down on my arsenal by one more guitar. The p90 will leave this guitar when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
I'd like to thank you guys for all the help, and for actually creating the diagrams in the first place in particular. I'm extremely satisfied with the results.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 25, 2016 18:18:33 GMT -5
The guitar is an sx furrian. From Rondo Music? Was it actually decent out of the box? You said you did some fret leveling, but otherwise? I got the Douglas Corvair 627 from them and it was almost dangerous to play. Every single one of the fret ends on both sides of the neck was sharp like a razor blade. Plus I had to beat a number of the upper frets in with a hammer and then file some of them down a bit. I've got it mostly okay now except that it has that Jazzmaster-style bridge and all of the string-popping-out-of-saddle issues that implies.
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