2 P-Rails w/ Triple Shots Middle Single To 5 Way Switch Help

[stratocasserole]

Hi! I'm new, so I apologize if this isn't the right place to post my question.

I have a wiring question about the P Rails w/ Triple Shots, and i'm trying to figure out how to install it into my Grote guitar which is a HSH, 1 volume, and tone, and 5 way switch.

So, I have 2 P-Rails for neck, and bridge, and they both came already wired to the Triple Shot, so only thing left to do, is install the mount, and connect the wires from the
Triple Shots, to where they would need to go. If I wire the Triple Shot, as if they are humbuckers, to the 5 way, and
I had the Triple Shot set to using only P-90 (Left side of the pickup, side that's closest to bridge), in position 1, and then switched over to position 2, where
it would usually split the bridge humbucker to act as a single coil, and turn on the middle single coil, wouldn't the bridge pickup not work at all, because the Triple Shot
already has that single coil side of the P Rail off?

What's the best way to wire the Triple Shot to the guitar with this configuration? Is there a way to use a push/pull pot to
bypass the Triple Shot, so if I had it down, the P Rails would acts as normal humbuckers, but if I had it up, i would be able to take full advantage of the Triple Shots?
My 2 P Rails came already wired to the Triple Shots, but I would have no issue with de-soldering, and re-route some wires if needs be. 

If you have any suggestions, please let me know! 

[newey]

stratocasserole-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

We'll probably need more specifics on your 5-way switch, what it looks like and how it's wired at present. Your intuition as to the Bridge coil-cut at position 2 is correct, however. Typically, in a bridge HB on a 5-way switch, the "series junction" of the bridge HB is wired to the middle lug on one pole of the 5-way, while the "hot" wires of the pickups go to the other pole. Thus, when one switches to position 2, the bridge is coil cut by grounding the series junction. If that's the way this is wired now, yes, that will present an issue if you were to wire the new HB that way.

There are a number of possible options, but the easiest is just to not wire the HB in that fashion. Your Triple Shot rings already allow for split coils in any position where that bridge HB is activated (as well as for the neck HB), and, if the Triple Shots are already wired, then you only have the 2 wires coming out from the rings anyway- the series junction between the HB coils is internally wired to the triple shot. So, you should be able to just wire the bridge HB "hot" wire to the position 1 lug on the 5-way (and ground the other wire, obviously) and use the triple shot switching to get your split-coil sounds at either position 1 or 2.

OTOH, if you want to keep the "auto-split" at position 2 and have the triple shot also split the coils, then some fancy finagling will be needed.

But again, let's have a look at your 5-way wiring first, I am making an assumption about your current wiring and we don't want some oddball type of 5-way switch to throw a curve at you here.

[stratocasserole]

Hi! Thank you very much for the welcome, and your help! 

Ah, yeah I understand. I'd love to take full advantage of the Triple Shot, but not at the cost of losing that position 2, and 4 pickups configuration.
If it's possible, I'd like to have the push/pull pot to act as a toggle switch in a way, so when it's down, both the P Rails are normal humbuckers,
and bypasses both the Triple Shots, and work like they're supposed to in position 2, and 4, but if I have the pot pulled up, it would go into Triple Shot mode,
so I can play around with the Triple Shot's settings. I don't mind doing some fancy wirings work,
as long as I understand what wire goes where, and hear that it can be possible haha. 

I attached a few images of the wirings from different angles, so it's easy to see what goes where. Volume pot is on the left, and tone on the right.
I bought this guitar as is, and never messed around with 5 way switches myself. I've had some experiences with wiring in new humbuckers on other guitars, but it was mostly for HH 1 volume, 1 tone, and 3 way
switch configuration, so it was pretty simple! Throwing in a 5 way switch, a push/pull pot, and possibly a Triple Shot bypass wiring, is a whole new ball park for me haha.

Thank you again for your time, and help!

[newey]

This would appear to be a standard import-style 5-way switch, where the 2 center lugs are the commons. However, all the wiring appears to be to the left-hand pole of the switch, I don't see any wires going to the right-hand pole. I can't see how your current wiring gives you the coil cuts at positions 2 and 4 as it is now. Therefore, either the 5-way switch doesn't operate as we would normally expect (we have seen some oddball 5-way switches over the years here), or you don't have coil-cuts in those positions now. Or perhaps there is a wire to the right-hand side of the switch that I am missing in the photos- please confirm whether there is any wire attached to that right-hand pole.

If there is no wire to any of the right-hand 3 lugs, then please perform a "tap test" at position 2 and 4 just to be sure the coils are actually being cut in those positions. Use a screwdriver blade or other metallic object to tap on each coil of the HBs with the guitar plugged into an amp (low volume). You should hear a distinct "thump" from active coils, and a much lesser "thump" from inactive ones. If the thumps are equal, then both coils are active.

If that shows that coils are cut at positions 2 and 4, then further exploration of the switch will probably be needed. Which will mean desoldering it and checking its operation with a multimeter (or a continuity tester).

Then, the big question: Can what you want to do be done with a DPDT push/pull switch? I have my doubts on that. A DPDT switch can switch 2 things independently. But there are 4 wires from each HB, and, while only 2 of those are used for the coil-cutting, we also have to be able to maintain the series/parallel options. So I'm not sure you would not need more switching.

Let's let others weigh in.

[stratocasserole]

Aahh, okay! Thank you!

I just looked at the 5 way, and there are no wires connected to the right side. I also tested the pickups in different positions, and it looks like I was wrong about
how position 2, and 4 work, so I apologize about that! Both the coils stays on in position 2, and 4, so it looks like the Triple Shot, and P Rails would work as if they're supposed to,
and nothing in the P Rail would get cut out whether when i'm in position 2, or 4, unless I had the Triple Shot's to turn off the P Rail, or single coil. Looks like wiring won't be as much of a hassle as I thought haha. 

I've looked everywhere on Seymour Duncan's, and everywhere elses online about wiring the Triple Shot to a 5 way switch, but I could not find a wire diagram for it.

Do you have a diagram, or could you explain how I can wire them in?

Thank you, again for your help, and time! 

[newey]

As I suspected from your pix. And, you're right, it does simplify things for you.

Think of it like this: Your P-rails and triple shots are a module. They are already wired together and will be installed as 2 single units; you don't need to concern yourself with the internal wiring at all, you are only concerned about the 2 wires that come out of the module.

One of those wires is a pickup "hot" and the other is a "ground" (in parentheses because the terms are more descriptive than accurate). A regular Strat with 3 single coils will likewise have 2 wires from each pickup. So, you can use any Strat wiring diagram that has 1 V, 1 T, and an import-style 5-way switch.

Basically, the wiring will be exactly as it is now. One pole of the 5-way switch won't be used at all. It looks like the 2 center terminals, the "commons" are already bent together and/or soldered together- not that they need to be with this wiring, but leave them be. Desolder the third lug over from the left-hand side (as seen in your pictures) and solder the neck pickup "hot" wire from the triple shot there. Do the same with the first lug over from the left and wire the bridge "hot" there. Both ground wires go to the ground point- probably on the back of one of the pots but I can't tell from the pictures.

That leaves the middle pickup. You haven't talked about replacing that one, so I assume that you are keeping the one you have now. Since it is (presumably) not a SD pickup, we don't know if it will be "in phase" with your HBs if you leave it wired as it is now. You could test for phase (instructions to do so are in our References section), but given that the middle pickup is already wired in, it may be easier to just wire the SDs as I described and trust to luck, you have a 50-50 chance of getting it right. If it turns out that your middle pickup is out of phase with the SDs, you then would have to dewire the middle pup and swap its 2 wires around.

[stratocasserole]

Awesome, thank you very much for your help! You've made the wiring sound a little bit easier haha. I will update as soon as it's completed! 

[dirthead]

hey im doing the same to my guitar, i was wondering if you could take a picture of your wiring if you finished it just so i could see where to solder the wires, i dont know much about wiring so itd help alot!

[newey]

dirthead-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

stratocasserole hasn't been back since May, so I doubt he'll get back to you. But we'll be happy to help. A well-focused shot of your existing wiring would be helpful. When you say you're doing the same to your guitar, exactly the same? P-rails with triple shots? And, are they already wired together?

[marantz]

A also am in need of technical help with wiring an HSH setup with 2 P-rails ( Bridge and Neck ) with Triple Shots added to both. The single coil will be a stock Ibanez for now. This is my guitar currently.

 

I want to have both Prails with the Triple Shot capable of series, parallel, single coil, and P90 ( I think this is automatic when wiring to the triple shot ). So there will be two wires coming out of the Prails ultimately.

I'm going to remove the mini-toggle ( since the triple shots make this redundant). But, I would like to add a tone pot. So, 1 tone pot for the Bridge PU, and the 2nd tone wired to the neck and middle single coil, and of course a master volume pot as I have now.

What I've heard is that to get the best tones out PUs, a 500 pot is best for humbuckers, and a 250 pot is best for single coils. Apparently there are dual 250/500 pots. So, could I have a 250/500 volume, a 250/500 middle/neck tone pot, and a 250/500 bridge tone pot? Is so, I've heard of a couple of choices, 1 being a dual concentric pot, another being a push/push pot, is there one that is more suited than the other? any brands you would recommend?

Will I need a new 5 way switch, or will the stock Ibanez switch do? This is the switch

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This is the horrible wiring job I've done so far. I'm going to get a tech to do the final work, I want to

make absolutely sure I buy the right parts for him to do the job.

I have purchased some vintage guage wire also.

For the 5 position switch, I'd like it to behave like a typical switch.

positions

1- whatever mode the Prails is in

2- a mix between the Prails mode and the middle single coil

3- single coil

4- a mix between the Prails mode of neck, and the middle single coil

5- whatever mode the Prails is in.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[newey]

OK, as was said earlier in this thread, you'll wire the P-rails™ to their respective Triple Shot™ rings, so you'll end up with 2 wires coming out of each Triple Shot, a "hot" and a ground. WIre these to the terminals as labeled on the switch. Wire the middle single coil to its 2 pads on the switch. For the neck and bridge P-Rails, ignore the pads labeled "Tap". you won't be using those. Those are for splitting the HBs, but you'll be using the Triple SHots to do all that switching.

As far as V and T controls, you can get a dual-gang pot with differing values for each gang, or you can use concentrics for individual control of each pickup. I frankly think people overthink the whole "250K for single coils, 500K for HBs" thing. With a 500K, if you turn it down a bit, you're at 250K or thereabouts anyway. And older Gibson HB guitars, SGs and LPs, used to use 300K pots; no one complained. But it's really just personal preference. My preference is to have the extra bit of high end that a higher value pot gives, I can always turn the tone knob down if it's too bright. But you can't add brightness that isn't there in the first place. . .

[marantz]

Thanks! I will try all of your suggestions, much appreciated!

[maxm]

Newey you really have a good handle on guitar wiring. Ive been combing through old posting trying to figure out the solution to my wiring conundrum. I have H-S-H P-rail with triple shots, a factory Ibanez single coil, And another P rail with triple shot. 1 vol, 1 tone, 5 way. Guitar is a 1996 ibanez s470. Id like to wire it standard with the exception of the middle position being B+M parallel. Ive tried to adapt John Hewitt's diagram for the Hastings killer strat mod to work with my setup for about a day now. This strat wiring runs the BxM in series, and I believe uses both tone pots in the signal chain for the switching of the pickups. Would appreciate any help to get this figured out. I may just have to use a super switch.