HH Mustang series/split/parallel

[nhirvana]

First let me apologize if this is posted in the wrong place.
I have a Mustang copy that I just got. I wanted to swap out the two single coils for humbuckers and keep 1 volume and 1 tone. I bought a new pickguard and installed 2 Switchcraft on/on/on DPTT slide switches and 2 SPST mini toggles. The mini toggles for on/off of each pup and for the slides I want position 1 (closest to headstock) to be series, middle position would be split (single coil), and position 3 would be parallel. So, series/split/parallel. Will this schematic give me what I want? The blue highlighted line is the white wire of my pickups. Both pickups have the same color code. My tone cap is soldered to the middle lug of the pot and the first lug goes to volume unlike the diagram.
Thanks for the help!

[Deleted]

Hmm first thing im unsure of is where the common is , slide switch guessing and the common is two of the four pins in the middle (most of the time)

[Deleted]

Hmm first thing im unsure of is where the common is , slide switch guessing and the common is two of the four pins in the middle (most of the time)

Second ground on the pickup, i cant see any to tie one of the poles down.
The brad is grounding but more shielding and maybe ground for metal parts that are not effecting the pickups themselves

[newey]

Aug 6, 2021 1:34:25 GMT -5 @angellahash said:

Second ground on the pickup, i cant see any to tie one of the poles down.

Yes, there's no ground for any of the pickup wires. The bare wire is just a shield for the frame of the pickup, it does not carry signal.

I can't do a diagram at the moment, but if you start by wiring the black wire permanently to the ground, bypassing the switch entirely, I think you can figure it out. Red wire stays connected as you have shown it. Only the middle two wires will actually be switched by the slide switches.

[nhirvana]

Thanks for the replies. I have a few questions. Looking at the diagram let’s say position 1 of the slide switch is all the way up. Doing what you suggest, just grounding black and bypassing the switch, when the switch is in position one I, green and white connect, black is always ground, red is always hot giving me normal series humbucking. Middle position would connect nothing, so green and white aren’t connected to each other or anything else. Red is hot, black is ground but there’s no link. In position 3, red would be connected to white and then go to power. Green would be connected to nothing.
Should the bottom right lug go to ground, giving me parallel in position 3?
And what needs to happen in the middle position to get split coil? I’ve split a lot of humbuckers and I’ve always grounded the series loop (green and white in this case) to achieve single coil. I don’t see how to do that with this configuration.
I appreciate the time and effort to answer my questions. I only understand enough about electricity and electronics to get in trouble. Thankfully there are places like this. Thanks again!!

[nhirvana]

I guess if I just leave the black wire the way it is in the diagram and ground it, thereby grounding the 2 lugs it goes to, that would give me what I want. But I’m probably overlooking something obvious.

[nhirvana]

I went ahead and wired it and it appears that’s it’s right. Its doing what I wanted. At least it sounds that way to me and I’m happy. I realized I was incorrect when I said the middle position connects nothing, it connects green and white. Once I realized that it made sense. Both the lugs that were jumped by the black wire in the diagram needed to be grounded. Thanks for setting me on the right (apparently) track. I’d put up a pic but I don’t see the option. I’m on an iPhone.

[Yogi B]

Aug 6, 2021 1:34:25 GMT -5 @angellahash said:

Hmm first thing I'm unsure of is where the common is slide switch guessing and the common is two of the four pins in the middle (most of the time)

A Mustang style switch is different, it doesn't have a common terminal. If we label the terminals vertically down one side A, B, C, D, then: in the first position A & B are connected; in the second position, B & C; and in the third position C & D. The same is true of the terminals down the other side. (See also: The Three-position Slide Switch (Fender Mustang))

---

nhirvana, I'm a little confused by the positive and negative labelling on the diagram. Normally the sign indicates the polarity of the voltage (relative to the other end of a coil) under the same stimulus (often a string, or other ferromagnetic object, moving towards the pickup). Therefore in order that the two coils are connected in phase, the series link consists of the 'negative' lead of one coil and the 'positive' lead of the other coil. Additionally when connected in parallel the negative leads should be connected together, and (separately) the positive leads should also be connected together.

Also as it stands, assuming that the black wire is also tied to ground, in the split position both pickups would be split to the north coil of each humbucker. It might be an idea to swap the wiring of one of the humbuckers such that when spit it gives the south coil instead, therefore when both pickups selected and both split, you'd have a hum-cancelling combination. That is on one of the pickups swap red with white, and also swap black with green (presuming the colours are correct and the aforementioned labelling is wrong).

Another point that's potentially worth considering is with both pickups toggles in the off position you could potentially still get quite a bit of noise. The best way to get as close to silence as possible would require upgrading the SPSTs to DPDTs. Then when neither pickup is selected you could use the second pole of each switch (combined in series) to short the 'hot' and ground of the output jack.

[Deleted]

I was wondering about that yogi

[nhirvana]

I should’ve drawn the diagram by hand. I don’t have any diagram drawing app or software so I took a piece of a larger diagram that had 8 lug slide switches and “edited” it for my needs. I never really looked at the +’s and -‘s or the North/South labels. My wire colors are correct. These are unbranded Invader-type (large pole pieces) pickups that didn’t come with a wire color diagram. I used my meter and deductive reasoning to figure out what wire went where. The green and white were soldered together as was the black and bare. Red was by itself. After splitting the series loop I had continuity between red and green. The rest fell into place.
I appreciate the suggestions but I like how it sounds the way it is. I kind of welcome noise in the SC positions and the bottom line is, I suck at playing and nobody but me hears me play anyway. The occasional unlucky neighbor and my 9 year old daughter aside. My hobby/passion is buying cheap guitars and making them look and sound better (at least to me). But I build or rebuild my guitars as if someone who knows what they’re doing could pick one up and be satisfied with how it plays, feels and sounds and looks.
Thanks to everyone who commented for taking the time to lend your knowledge and experience. It’s great to have a resource like this and it’s because of generous people like you willing to share what they know!

[Deleted]

Easy EDA for PCB/Circuit Diagrams

[unreg]

Aug 6, 2021 19:44:35 GMT -5 nhirvana said:

I’d put up a pic but I don’t see the option. I’m on an iPhone.

my way of putting up a pic from an iPhone:

1.) resize said pic to a width of at most 500 pixels. The “Resize It” AppStore app works wonderfully; just load the pic and change its width, the two boxes are width x height, to 500 (pixels) and the height will automatically adjust to keep the pic’s shape the same.

2.) email the resized pic to yourself

3.) dl that pic on a computer and visit guitarnuts2.proboards.com

Notes: 500 pixel width will fit perfectly on a phone’s proboards. The computer version of proboards has an image button. I believe it is possible to upload both the 500 pixel image and a bigger version to the forum and then use the url and img tags to have the smaller pic link to the bigger one.

[nhirvana]

Thanks unreg. i did all that and i dug out my chromebook. Lets see if i did it right.