Help me out please!

[paulwillem]

Hi guys,

I am new to the club, and hope you can help me out.

i have recently installed a seymour duncan hotrail in the bridge and a seymour duncan little 59 in the neck. But i want them to split with one simple switch like dave gilmour has in his strat. A very small toggle switch. I dont want push pull or super switches.  The problem is, i am not sure what kinda toggle switch i need (should i use a spdt or dpdt), and how to wire it. Maybe something like the screenshot?




I hope u guys can help me out.

Thanks!!!

[JohnH]

Hi Paul, and welcome to GN2

What you need is a dpdt switch, and that wiring diagram, although its for a push-pull switch, is a good basis.

The switches usually used look like this one:
www.jaycar.com.au/dpdt-miniature-toggle-switch-solder-tag/p/ST0355?utm_campaign=redirect&utm_source=ST0355r&utm_medium=web

You can find them everywhere, dpdt miniature toggle switch. It mounts into a 6.5mm hole. You can also get a slightly smaller style (sub miniature) which mounts into a 5.5mm hole. Not as common but I have one on my Strat and I like them a bit better. Another choice is whether to have a round lever like a baseball bat, or s flattened one (less common)

In any of them the pinouts are set out 2x3 like in the diagram you posted, so you could use that even though it will be a seperate switch. Dpdt (double pole double throw) means it has two poles (ie two sets of switch contacts) and the poles are the middle lugs and they connect either up or down to the outer lugs. When you operate the switch, the two sets of joined red/white wires get shunted to ground, bypassing one coil, leaving a single coil active.

Another good thing is that you have Seymour Duncan pickups, and the red white are the right colours for that.

There's one more wrinkle. Each humbucker has a north and a south pole and together they are humcancelling. Single coils are not humcancelling, but if you selected a combination of a north from one and a south for the other as a combo setting, then it would be. But as drawn, they'll likely both split to the same polarity so you may still get a bit of hum in the middle combination of two split singles. Its not more than any other single coil though. If you wish, you can fix that by shunting one pickup to hot instead of ground, using the same same switch. So you could try that later if you wish, it would be an easy change , or figure it out now.

[paulwillem]

A thanks, you really helped me out on this one. If managed to install this like you told me and it workes exactly like i wanted it to. There is some hum, but like you said, i out one of the wires on hot instead of ground and now it workes even better. Tahnk you very much. Really happy about it!!