Ideas for wiring of HSS

[doogs]

Hello everyone.

First thing, I am aware that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I'm hoping that you will be gentle with me.  This is the 1st time I have attempted to rewire a guitar from scratch and also to draw a schematic that can be shown to someone other than the demon on my shoulder.  I couldnt work out how to put notes on the drawing for clarity, so I hope my explanation below allows someone to understand it.   

I am rebuilding a cheap HSS strat copy, but want to do something special with it using a set of iron gear H/S/S pickups and have my blank scratchplate ready to drill for pots and switches.  

I don't want the 5 way switch, and have 6 toggle switches of various types and a momentary nc/no switch that I was going to use as a kill switch ( routing the hot to ground when depressed).  I also had a thought of using a vol/tone per pickup, using 3 dual concentric pots, of various resistances.  I have 2 250ohm pots and a 500ohm pot.  I have a variety of tone capacitors, 47, 33, 22,  and could put a treble bleed on each of the volume pots if required.






The image is what I had envisaged originally.  I have mostly used red for the neck SC output, Blue for the middle SC output and Green for the Bridge H/B output.  

neck SC going to phase reversal, then switch to route it(via a dp3t) to either its own vol/tone or send the output to the middle SC.  an additional switch sits between here and the middle pup to route the signal either to the middle or the bridge.

Signal comes into middle pup switch,  Here I can either send it to the middle vol/tone divert the signal to the bridge, or switch off.

At the bridge I have a series/split/parallel switch for the humbucker, going to the vol/tone then to an on/off SPDT sending signal to ground or to kill switch.

the hot from neck/middle I have joining the hot from the bridge at the output from the s/s/p switch.  I am not entirely sure where this should join here tbh.

Then the whole lot hits a momentary no/nc kill switch, sending signal either to the output or to ground.  This will be lit, but I didnt see any point in putting this in the schematic.

I have worked out that I can all sorts of parallel/series combinations as well as individual pick up selections, if my basic understanding is correct.  I also see that depending on selections I could have redundant vol/tone knobs at times, depending on the routing of the hot signal, and this may be considered superfluous by some, but what is custom wiring about, if not personalisation!

I am hoping that this is not a complete muddle and that at least part of it will make sense to those with greater knowledge than myself.

Thanks in advance

[newey]

doogs-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Aug 4, 2020 7:10:15 GMT -5 doogs said:

I am hoping that this is not a complete muddle

We need to talk . . .

First off, you cannot achieve series wiring of 2 (or more)pickups by simply tying the two "hot" wires of the 2 pickups together. To put a pickup in series with another requires that both the hot and ground connections, for one of the two, be switched.

The bridge pickup series/split/parallel switch is indecipherable as there are too many overlying wires to see what is happening there. Also, for any of the DPDT switches that are 3-position, we would need to know if the switches are On-On-On or On-Off-On. Similarly, is the momentary switch for the kill normally open or normally closed? (you say both ways)

While you can certainly wire a guitar with 6 pots (3 concentric ones, per your description), this will really load the circuit, dulling your tone, in any position where all the pickups are operating. Using no-load pots can help this, but you'd likely have to DIY no-load concentric pots, as these are not commercially available AFAIK.

We'll be happy to help you achieve what you want, but your diagram doesn't help much as a starting point. Let's approach this another way: Tell us what you want the guitar to do, in terms of pickup combinations, in series or in parallel, in-phase or OOP, for each of the pickups. Then we can work out what components you will need and work up a diagram for you.

For example, I can't tell if there is a way to turn the individual pickups on or off. It looks like the bridge has an "off" switch, but I can't tell for the N or M pickups.

If series/parallel combos are the goal, with phase as well, then one of the variations on the Brain May wiring we have here may get you close to what you want, perhaps with some added tweaking.

[doogs]

Thanks for being gentle.

I'll respond to a simple question first. The kill switch is a 3 tab momentary spdt switch that can be used either as no or nc depending on how it is connected. The plan here is to wire in just prior to the output jack, and send signal to ground when depressed.

Interestingly, one of earlier scrawls I drew trying to get my head round this had hot and ground from the 2 SC pickups through the schematic and a series /parallel switch for the these instead of what I ended up drawing here. I started getting myself all confused with trying to make sure that everything was properly grounded.

I haven't used this guitar for 25 years or so, and I want options and I like toggle switches 😂.

From the reading I have been doing it was becoming obvious that the 3 vol/tone thing was likely to be the wrong approach.

What I originally thought to do was to be able to give myself as many permutations as possible, including being able to vary individual pick up volumes but I think that will be forgotten now.

What I had hoped to achieve in terms of combination was
Neck
Middle
Bridge

Neck and middle
Neck and bridge
Middle and bridge
Neck, middle and bridge (these options in either parallel or series)

The addition of a phase reversal on neck and a series /split /parallel switch on the bridge covers just about every combination that I can imagine wanting.



Ideally I would like to restrict to 6 switches. Other than that I am open to any advice on offer.

As much as anything, the journey in doing this is as much of why I'm doing it as the end result is. The more I can learn the better and hopefully have a bit of fun challenging myself in the process.










Edited to add: I had planned on being able to switch each pick up on and off. (the more I'm replying here, the closer I think I'm getting to a modification of Brian May wiring)

[newey]

Aug 4, 2020 13:39:43 GMT -5 doogs said:

(the more I'm replying here, the closer I think I'm getting to a modification of Brian May wiring)

That's what it is sounding like, somewhat. JohnH has drawn the definitive series/parallel BM scheme, much discussed recently. Here is the original thread:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/4855/brian-series-parallel-switching-sss

Note that to do all this series/parallel switching for 3 pickups will require a 4-pole switch. Also, not sure on how we can intergrate the HB split switching, that may pose some challenges.

[doogs]

Newey,

I was looking at the modified BM and the 2 volume strat wiring last night and it made me go back to just about my first concept that I had before too much reading confused me.

Just to go back to where i started before I read too much and confused myself, I drew out, almost pretty much what I originally had intended, just with the deletion of a vol/tone dedicated to the neck, instead combining with the middle.



to walk though;

neck pup => phase reversal => switch sending to vol tone/ off / or into middle or bridge

           =>   switch to send signal to either middle or bridge

middle pup => switch for s/s/p (I am thinking I may have an extra switch here as I think sending straight to vol/tone puts it parallel with neck anyway) => switch sending to vol/tone / off / into bridge

bridge => s/s/p => s/s/p switch to include signal from neck / neck and middle =>  on/off

Everything then goes to a kill switch

At both extremes of switching I have everything in parallel or everything in series, with combinations in between.  As well as the kill switch I have the possibility of switching all three pups off independently.

As much as anything at this point, I am confused as to how represent, colour wise, the signal once combined in series/parallel, so I havent. 

For the phase switching and the s/s/p switch, i copied the schematic from 1728.org which I found before I discovered this forum.

Hopefully this makes a bit more sense than my 1st attempt.

I have looked at this a lot before I drew my other schematic, and added/removed bits.  I have some of the appropriate switches for s/s/p switching as well as 2 pos dpdt for phase and signal routing from the neck to either bridge or middle.  For the other switches I have read that I need to use on/on/on in order to be able to switch the pup off or route in to where I want it to go, but as yet, I don't fully understand this part of it.  I also already have 3 pole spdt switches for using as on/off switching for the bridge. 

switched are the least cost in this, so I dont mind getting more/different ones if required.






edited to add:  it looks like the on/off switch at the bridge is dawn incorrectly, but it is a format issue, the input is to the middle lug, not the top one

[newey]

doogs-

It will take me a while to sort through the series/parallel stuff here, it looks to me at first blush that this could be simplified. More later.

A couple of obvious issues. First, if the kill switch can be wired either NC or NO and has 3 lugs, I'm guessing that only 2 lugs get connected for NC, and a different 2 for NO. If the switch isn't marked to tell you which way is which, you will need to test the connections with a multimeter (or a simple continuity tester). You can wire it either way, but one way may be noisier than the other. I'll let others weigh in on the best way to do that, I've never had a guitar with a kill switch myself.

Also, I need to know the wire colors for your HB before I can assess your HB split/series/parallel switch wiring. We also need to know if all pickups come from the same mfr. or not- if not, some testing for proper phasing will probably be needed.

neck pup => phase reversal => switch sending to vol tone/ off / or into middle or bridge

This is a bit confusing, let me see if I am reading this correctly. First off, your phase switch is fine. The second switch, I read your meaning here that you want this switch to give you:

neck pup in parallel/neck off/neck in series with bridge/middle

Correct?

middle pup => switch for s/s/p (I am thinking I may have an extra switch here as I think sending straight to vol/tone puts it parallel with neck anyway)

Yes.

Off the top of my head, I am thinking that a 4PDT switch may be needed for the series/parallel stuff here (as in JohnH's BM design), using 2 DPDT switches will likely leave one or more "dead spots" (i.e., if one series/parallel switch is set to series and the other to parallel)

[doogs]

Once again, thanks Newey.

The kill switch will be wired hot to the middle lug, output to the NC side.  when depressed it makes contact to the opposite pole, which will send the output to ground.  Took me ages to find one, and I'm going to have to 3d print an enclosure to fix onto the back of the scratch plate to hold it in position too.

your other assumptions are pretty much spot on.

I think the middle series/parallel is superfluous as if both pups are just sent to vol/tone they are in parallel, so if the switch is routed to the middle I would need to check the wiring to send to correct polarity in to make it in series with the middle.  I'm thinking the same for the 2nd s/s/p switch at the bridge.  I could just try and figure out to have an series/off/parallel (direct to vol/tone) switch and lose the on/off and 2nd s/s/p at the bridge.  Really, my switching ideas, I think, are to send the outputs down the chain towards the bridge to make the connections series, with the basic output to vol/tone giving me the parallel as default.

The only other thing I note, and its not an issue to me is that as I send the signal fully in series into the bridge one of the vol/tone might be useless, as all of the hot signal is hitting the vol/tone connected to the bridge.  There may be some interaction as the they are wired into the kill switch together, but I don't have the understanding yet to know if this will happen or not.

I haven't checked the colours on the pups, (iron gear) at the moment but for the purposes of validating the schematic, I just used the SD colours from the schematic on 1728.org.  Once I get confident that I am likely to get something approaching a variety of sounds from the drawing I will double check and redo the drawing!  It's just a case of clicking and changing colour for the wire.





For tracing through with a multimeter, which I will probably do as I'm going, to check continuity of the wiring, I guess I would leave the phase switch at normal and follow it from there?

I wont be doing the wiring for a bit - I am resetting my tremolo posts at the moment before I do anything else.  I had a bit of movement on the screws so I have plugged and will be re-drilling soon.  The wiring is the last bit after I get the action and physical attributes set up properly.

[newey]

I am thinking that JohnH's BM diagram would be a good starting point, simplifying it by eliminating 2 of the 3 phase switches, then adding in the bridge HB switching. This does then require a 4PDT switch, but again, I'm thinking any such scheme we could come up with to put all 3 in series would require one anyway.

Another question: Does it matter to you which coil is selected by the coil-cut switch?

[doogs]

Not really bothered on the coil cut.  My understanding it is normally the bridge side that is selected so I was going to select that one.

I will have a think tonight and try and simplify my last drawing, I think with the correct switches I can take 2 out and replace with one, I just need to get my head around the series switching side of things more.  My current (sic) understanding is that if I send the + of the neck to meet the - of the middle at the switch and vice versa I will be putting them in series, but I have never quite understood the blue sparky thing that is electricity.

First though, I will have a really good look at the BM drawings and try to trace the paths for each switch position and see how close that is to what I had originally thought.  I think it's close, but needs modifying for what my original thought was.  I don't want 3 phase switches, but I do want a s/s/p switch, so its a good basis.  It may be that my thinking is wrong and I just need to copy what exists, but I haven't seen anything that matches directly yet.


thanks again.

[newey]

Aug 5, 2020 10:48:58 GMT -5 doogs said:

My understanding it is normally the bridge side that is selected so I was going to select that one.

There are a couple of considerations. Some peope want the bridge-most coil for the added treble while soloing, but the sonic differences between the 2 coils will likely be minimal so long as the 2 coils are similar, since they are so close together. Picking one versus the other may be more meaningful if the 2 coils are vastly dissimilar, as with SD's "P-rails" HBs. Also, some people want the screw coil selected so that it can be adjusted via the screws.

But the bigger consideration is hum-cancellation when the split bridge coil is put in combo with either the N or M pickups. Assuming your set has a RWRP middle pup, both combos won't be hum-cancelling regardless of which coil is selected at the bridge. So then it becomes a question of which setting you will likely use more- Bridge single coil with the middle, or with the neck?

[doogs]

Newey,

I have no idea as I haven't played a single coil guitar for 20+ years!

My instinct is that bridge and neck would be the best combo but I've no idea why. Maybe because they are further apart and likely to be more interesting when combined.

The middle pick up is rwrp.

For reference it is the Steam Hammer /Pig Iron Over wound set here that I will be using:

www.axetec.co.uk/guitar_parts_uk_043.htm

[JohnH]

hi doogs

I also like HSS, and my own scheme on my Strat is based on a standard 5 way and pots, with one extra switch to get a wide range of series and parallel. Id be happy to discuss.

But for a toggle scheme, you could definitely do that based on those BM designs, and you could wire it up directly as drawn, maybe with less phase switches if you wish.

But if you want to add coil-cut for the HB, there is an extra potential trick whereby if you reverse the phase of the bridge and also coil cut it, it can cut to the other single coil so you get both options. Then, if you keep all the phase switches, you can then find all the humcancelling mixes of two pickups or coils, in or out of phase. But it does add up to a lot of switches.

To be honest, I came to the view for my own use that I don't really want phase reverses anymore, but you may like to explore for yourself.

[doogs]

Hi JohnH,

I'm struggling a bit working this out without adding another phase switch to be honest (insert head exploding gif here). If I can get this to work I may come back to this idea.

I've been looking at the BM wiring and I think I finally just about understanding that and what I can take from it.

I think I'm back down to my original plan of 6 switches + kill.

Going to do a final schematic and check supplies tomorrow!!

[doogs]

JohnH,

I've spent long enough trying to resolve what was unresolvable in my original ideas.

I am going to go for a modification of the BM series / parallel wiring.

I'm not going to wire in a phase reversal switch for the middle pick up, but instead I will add in your suggestion of the phase switch with the bridge.

How exactly does this fit in with an s/s/p switch at the bridge?

Going through the threads it seems hard to find a definitive answer on the pot resistance for this wiring. I have both normal resistance pots, which one would you recommend?.

[JohnH]

All good and I'll help.

So you'd have:

three normal dpdt switches for pickup off and on

a four pole two position switch 4pdt for overall series/parallel

So four for the basic wiring. Then, setting aside the kill switch, there are some choices to be made.

Do you want to stick with 6 switches plus
kill? I think I'd do that, in which case I'd do phase and coil-cut switches for the bridge, and that'd offer the use of either bridge coil (i can sketch how). With care this can be set up to make humcancelling combos of a bridge single and the neck, in series and parallel, in phase or out of phase. Plenty to explore.

If there was to be one more switch, I'd do phase on M, which would offer more humcancelljng B-M and N-M combos. Easily added later if wanted without a general rewiring.

Pots:
People get tied up in knots wondering about pot values for guitars with HSS and/or series wiring, given the udual advice of 250k for humbuckers and 250k for singles.

My HSS strat came with all 250k's. What I changed to was I made the tone pot 250k no-load, which means it clicks off to infinite resistance as it gets to 10. I like this very much, it has the same max treble tone as two 500k pots, but is a smoother more consistent operation across the range.

But with normal pots, I'd use all 500k, and just turn the tone down slightly if its too edgy on singles.

Treble bleed is recommended. I use 1nF cap in parallel with 150k on a 500k volume pot, or 1nF and 120k on a 250k volume.

[doogs]

JohnH,

I have drawn out this.  I turned the schematic for diagram2 from here,  www.1728.org/guitar2a.htm, upside down so it better reflects what I am looking at from behind, as if I were sitting doing the wiring,  other than the position of vol/tone, and added the correct colours for Iron Gear pickups.

for connection to the neck switch, all the wires show green/black, for the middle switch they are green/yellow and the bridge are all cyan/white. All connections to ground are blue, and the final hot signal to the jack is red. I though that this would make it easier to follow against the original diagram.

As I don't know how to put the phase reversal in at the bridge I have put it in at the neck for time being.

The only other addition I made was to give each pickup its own tone control, with 1 master volume, but this may be overkill?

Other than the positioning of the phase switch, is this close to your thoughts?  The switch layout seem pretty logical, and I think the phase would suit that position regardless of whether being driven by neck or bridge

thanks again

Doogs





edited to add I just realised I missed to connection from the bridge output to the middle lug on the tone pot!

[JohnH]

Hi doogs

A few comments/suggestions:

Drawn from the back, its looks like its for a 'lefty', all fine if that's you.

Wolf (1728 owner, also a respected member here) drew his circuit a bit differently in terms of lug connections than mine, but it should be fine in general. I haven't checked it against yours though

If you want to make a diagram that helps you the most in wiring, you might consider drawing wires point-to-point between lugs, without the joints of wires meeting in space. what you drew is more of a hybrid schematic/wiring. However whatever helps you think it through is best.

For a kill-switch, as drawn the kill position disconnects the output completely, which means it might buzz slightly due to hum. Its better to wire the output from the volume pot straight to the jack, and then use the switch to shunt it to ground, which is dead silent.

The tone pots are as drawn on 1728 and it works but Im not a fan of doing it that way. Each one is loading the whole circuit to ground, dulling the tones particularly I series and they are never really independent. If you don't use tone controls much or just want to make a small adjustment, Id suggest just a single master tone control. If you want more tweakabilty, then have them but wire the pot/cap tone circuits directly across the two main wires from each pickup. there are some interesting series tones available there but really id recommend just a master tone.

Just checking the pickup wiring. For your pickup supplier, for standard humbucker wiring, is it red to hot, black to ground and green/white joined?

Ill sketch what I was on about for the bridge phase and coil cut, which will give each single coil. But what you have drawn is another good option, giving you one single plus parallel and series from the bridge, in which case phase might as well stay on the neck.

[doogs]

JohnH,

Ha, I've drawn what made sense to me sitting at the computer screen, but yes, you're right, it's reversed

HB colours are:

Screw coil red + green -
Slug coil white + black -

I'm going to try your suggestion for wiring of the tone controls. I'll be drawing this again to give me my wiring guide, so I may put it up again just to make sure I've got the tone controls correctly shown.

I'll put a treble bleed on the volume too and revise the kill switch.

Thanks for the suggestions. You guys here are amazing!

[JohnH]

hi doogs

here's two ways to do your humbucker. in each case, th etwp wires coming out of the bottom of the diagram can sub directly into our circuit like a pickup.




Both deliver the red/green coil as the main single option. On the right, is exactly as you have it except I happened to put the switch the other way up.

On the left, a phase switch and coil cut are combined so you can get either coil, with the black/white being reversed phase.

Either are good options. On the left you have more single options  and hum cancelling combinations, on the right you have a parallel humbucker option which is bright and clear and hum cancelling in itself. Id expect youd enjoy either.

If you want to optimise either of them for neck/bridge combos, it is worth getting the best single coil from the  bridge.  The in phase bridge single needs to have opposite magnetic polarity to the neck, so you might like to see which of the two bridge coils attracts the neck pickup when placed face to face, and that will be the one to aim for. This may result in a change of the wire colours shown above. 

 

[doogs]

JohnH

Does the coil cut switch need to be a dpdt or is spdt sufficient?

It looks so straightforward I think I'll put it in.

Rgds

D

[JohnH]

sure, single pole is fine for the coil cut.

[doogs]

Just thought I'd check in as I finally got myself a working guitar this week.

Final wiring was a modified BM. S/S/P for the bridge, phase for neck, 3x on/off, series /parallel master switch, master tone/volume.

I had some trials and tribulations on my way, wrecked MANY switches through incompetent soldering but I did it.

Resistance measurements range from 2.7kohm to 26.7kohm. I was expecting the sound to get really dark but it's surprisingly nice even on full series.

Many thanks to everyone for the help last year, and I'm going to continue to haunt you all here, as I have a few build ideas I'm considering attempting that are just stupid and you can get to laugh at me.

[Jaga]

Congratulations! Would you please share the final schematics?

[doogs]

I just took the johnh Brian May + series /parallel switch, replaced the bridge switch with a humbucker s/s/p and got rid of the middle phase switch, so I don't have a full schematic. Sorry.