Gibson Nighthawk Wiring With Modern Superswitch

[kaustinwright]

Thanks so much Yogi B ! I also got a response on another forum with a 4PDT which omits the middle alone position, which I rarely use due to the noise. I would've preferred to keep it but he couldn't find a way.  I also wanted to have the tele tone on the 4pdt down, but he also wasn't able to work it out. I Really like your layout and just wanted to post this so you guys could see another route.

Take a look and let me know what you guys think!

Credit to Jack_TriPpEr 

forum.seymourduncan.com/forum/the-pickup-lounge/6105163-gibson-nighthawk-wiring-with-modern-superswitch/page3

[newey]

Jack TriPpEr is a member here as well, and his diagrams are pretty well presented and well thought out. I didn't see any issues with this. If there's a way to get the middle alone, or the Tele option with the switch down, Yogi B is the one to ask. I suspect that the middle alone can be done, but I'm not "seeing it" at the moment.

[Jack TriPpEr]

newey: thanks

kaustinwright: thanks for crediting me for the diagram. Is the software you used to create that, DIY Layout Creator?

[kaustinwright]

No problem at all! And yes, DIY LC. It was just a quick diagram to help me solder along and I figured I'd post it just in case anyone else wants to implement it in the future

[kaustinwright]

OK, I drew my best attempt at Yogi B's schematic. After wiring it up I am finding phase issues in the tele position and the position 4 of the strat side. I believe it must be something with the neck, but it very well could be an error on my part. 

[Yogi B]

Sept 2, 2021 11:48:32 GMT -5 kaustinwright said:

OK, I drew my best attempt at Yogi B's schematic. After wiring it up I am finding phase issues in the tele position and the position 4 of the strat side. I believe it must be something with the neck, but it very well could be an error on my part.

What about both humbuckers? If the Tele setting is out of phase, then I'd also expect that setting to be.

I think you just need to swap the phase of each coil of the neck pickup, i.e. swap red with white and swap green with black.

And I assume your still using the Gibson bridge pickup based on the wiring.

Other than that the rest of the diagram looks to be functionally fine.

Overall while I commend your strategy of splitting the 4PDT wiring onto a sub-diagram (I've seen a few 'bowls of spaghetti' drawn with DIYLC, to appreciate this), however because of this I do have another couple of suggestions for the future:

• on the super switches I'd put the two 'unconnected' jumper wires (between terminals 3&4 on the lower left pole and terminals 1&2 on the lower right) onto the lower copy that shows the 4PDT wiring — it's slightly confusing to see them seemingly unconnected on the first copy, and makes checking just that little bit harder;
• similarly I'd try to maintain colours across both copies, e.g. where the middle's red lead is connected in the upper diagram there's a link to the 4PDT in the lower, so I'd make that link red too. (In the case of the bridge's red & black leads, I probably wouldn't copy the twisting across, I'd make the colour a mix of the two — so brown or dark red.)

[Jack TriPpEr]

Before I got sick a few days ago, I downloaded Yogi B's diagram and my intent was to review it, understand it, and verify it. Today I was on-the-mend and was able to get that done.

The attached sketch I created from Yogi's diagram is in format closer to a traditional diagram with regards to the display/layout of the poles of the 5 way superswitch and the 4DPT switch. Therefore kaustinwright should be able to compare my sketch against the wiring diagram he created and check for errors in his. I suspect the phase issue Kaustin reports is an simple and understandable misinterpretation of Yogi's depiction of which wires of the two Neck pup coils are + and -. I found when I translated Yogi's wires for the neck pup, he placed the North + wire as the inside wire of that coil when it should be depicted as the outside wire, and similar issue applies for the + and - wires of the South coil of the Neck pickup. See how I corrected for this in my sketch.

Now onto my review and verification of Yogi's diagram.
A) all ten positions checked out fine during my review
B) No coils hanging from hot
C) it's a brilliant scheme and I learned a lot by studying it. Yogi is very clever in spotting that you can get a lot more options out of a scheme by having more than 1 wire attach to a single lug of the 4PDT switch, if properly planned. There are multiple instances of this in his diagram and its what accomplishes a lot of the magic in this complex scheme. Hat's off to Yogi B

Kaustin: Yogi's scheme is clearly superior to mine because he figured out how to give you the Tele sound and Bridge pickup in-series on the same position of the 4PDT switch AND he gave you Middle pup by itself w/o requiring an additional 2PDT. I'm glad to see you decided to try wiring up Yogi's scheme first.

[kaustinwright]

Jack TriPpEr I think you hit the nail on the head! I see exactly what I did wrong in my diagram after comparing it with yours. I have created an updated one to try and wire up tonight.

In the updated diagram I went ahead and used the Seymour Duncan color code for the bridge. In my previous iterations I kept it all Gibson just in case someone with a stock nighthawk tries to follow the diagram in the future. I Also implemented a few of your suggestions to make the diagram easier to follow Yogi B. 



Can't thank everyone enough, and if this works I think every Nighthawk owner would benefit from the "corrected" scheme. I'll keep everyone posted! 

[kaustinwright]

Just got done wiring it and I love the tones, however when the 4pdt is in the strat position, it is selecting the wrong (inside) neck coil on positions 4 and 5. On the 4pdt down position in position 4 it is selecting the outside coil. It could have been a mistake on my part, but could you guys take a look? I did flip the neck pickup as instructed

[Yogi B]

Sept 9, 2021 17:40:30 GMT -5 kaustinwright said:

Just got done wiring it and I love the tones, however when the 4pdt is in the strat position, it is selecting the wrong (inside) neck coil on positions 4 and 5. On the 4pdt down position in position 4 it is selecting the outside coil. It could have been a mistake on my part, but could you guys take a look? I did flip the neck pickup as instructed

It sound's like the pickup had already been rotated once before, at least in relation to the stock coil selections referenced in your opening post and the polarities on the official schematic.

This might've even happened at the factory due to either: midway through production, realizing that rotating the pickup would give the neck split to the outer coil (honestly I find it kinda weird that the stock wiring intends to give the inner coil); or during assembly simply the fact that, being a fully covered pickup, it's not visually obvious what the 'correct' orientation should be.

[gokartmozart]

Hey gang. Rather than reinvent the wheel with a new thread, figured I'd just piggyback on this one since kaustinwright and Yogi B had posted such a good amount of background info.

I recently got a mid-90's 3-pickup Nighthawk in a trade that has with the factory older-style EP1112 superswitch. I love the 10 tonal options but someone has obviously gone in and messed with the wiring because the neck & bridge settings are backwards; figured that they probably just followed the Gibson factory diagram that has the known error of the neck/bridge labels reversed. I swapped the red hot wires from the humbuckers on the switch, which reverted things back to the "Tone Knob DOWN" factory settings but the "Tone Knob UP" ones are still backwards.


Factory:



What I would LIKE to do though is keep the factory superswitch but make the pickup selections more intuitive, like the 20th Anniversary Nighthawk. Heck, it doesn't have to be 100% like this but the important thing is that I want the full neck humbucker in position 5 in the "Tone Knob DOWN" setting; having it in the middle is very hard to get used to.



Can this be done with the factory superswitch?




 

[newey]

someone has obviously gone in and messed with the wiring because the neck & bridge settings are backwards; figured that they probably just followed the Gibson factory diagram that has the known error of the neck/bridge labels reversed.

Or, perhaps they just mounted the switch rotated 190° You would be able to tell if the 2nd and 4th positions were similarly reversed. You might need to do some tapping of coils to tell which ones are active.

If that's the case, by switching the 2 HB wiires, you switched one-half of the scheme back. This would explain why the "up" selections were still reversed.

Whether you can get the neck HB alone at position 5, I'm guessing it's probably possible but a deeper dive will need to be done.

The downsides that I see to the 20th anniv. wiring is that you lose the Neck and Bridge HBs together, I'd want that setting for the LP-ish vibe. You also have a redundant selection at position 3. So. if the neck HB alone could be moved, keeping the 2 HB setting and eliminating the redundancy at 3, that would be a better solution IMO.

EDIT: Forgot my manners gokartmozart . . .

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

[gokartmozart]

Nov 29, 2022 23:02:12 GMT -5 newey said:

someone has obviously gone in and messed with the wiring because the neck & bridge settings are backwards; figured that they probably just followed the Gibson factory diagram that has the known error of the neck/bridge labels reversed.

Or, perhaps they just mounted the switch rotated 190° You would be able to tell if the 2nd and 4th positions were similarly reversed. You might need to do some tapping of coils to tell which ones are active.

If that's the case, by switching the 2 HB wiires, you switched one-half of the scheme back. This would explain why the "up" selections were still reversed.

Whether you can get the neck HB alone at position 5, I'm guessing it's probably possible but a deeper dive will need to be done.

The downsides that I see to the 20th anniv. wiring is that you lose the Neck and Bridge HBs together, I'd want that setting for the LP-ish vibe. You also have a redundant selection at position 3. So. if the neck HB alone could be moved, keeping the 2 HB setting and eliminating the redundancy at 3, that would be a better solution IMO.

EDIT: Forgot my manners gokartmozart . . .

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Thanks newey!

Yes, I originally thought that the switch was just rotated as well! Why would you go through the trouble of resoldering it backwards like that? However, there's just not enough leads from the DPDT or switch ground wire to spin it back around. Those solder joints on the brown wires look factory as well.



VERY good points on the redundancy of position 3 and lack of full humbucker Neck + Bridge! Based on that, I think this is now my ideal setting of how I want to rewire the switch. This would eliminate any redundancy, restore the full Neck + Bridge, AND allow 10 unique sounds.

[gokartmozart]

Was piddling around just now and I swapped the location of each green/white pair on the switch and that fixed the backwards setting on the "TONE UP" position, so I'm back at factory setting now!




Just need to figure out a way to correct the "TONE DOWN" setting to the graphic that I posted in the previous post.

[newey]

Leaving town for a few days so I'm not sure when I can get a look at this. Maybe someone else can step into the breach here!

[reTrEaD]

Nov 29, 2022 22:45:38 GMT -5 gokartmozart said:

What I would LIKE to do though is keep the factory superswitch but make the pickup selections more intuitive, like the 20th Anniversary Nighthawk. Heck, it doesn't have to be 100% like this but the important thing is that I want the full neck humbucker in position 5 in the "Tone Knob DOWN" setting; having it in the middle is very hard to get used to.



Can this be done with the factory superswitch?

I don't have time to draw this up for you but I can tell you that it's definitely possible with a superswitch and a DPDT push-pull. In fact it could even be done with a standard strat 5-way and a DPDT push-pull.

Those are conventional pickup selections, the only difference between up and down is: whatever HB might be selected in a given position is split to single in the up position.

[MattB]

Nov 30, 2022 0:03:27 GMT -5 gokartmozart said:

VERY good points on the redundancy of position 3 and lack of full humbucker Neck + Bridge! Based on that, I think this is now my ideal setting of how I want to rewire the switch. This would eliminate any redundancy, restore the full Neck + Bridge, AND allow 10 unique sounds.

I don't think this version is possible with just a DPDT. It is possible with a 4PDT, but 4PDT push pulls aren't cheap or easy to find. MEC sell them, but the threaded portion of the bushing is only 9mm long. That seems like it might be too short to fit through a solid top.

www.mec-pickups.de/en/potentiometer/mec-mono-potentiometer-a250k-pushpull-4pdt-m-87251

Here's a schematic using a 4PDT:





And here's a possible alternative using only a DPDT. This version replaces the middle-only position with one coil from each humbucker, in parallel. The downside of this scheme is you have three split-coil combinatons, and they can't all be hum-cancelling. 





Only two poles of the superswitch are shown, because that's all you need.

[Jack TriPpEr]

Welcome to the forum, gokartmozart.

Here is a schematic that will do what you asked for in your reply below.

I can writeup a cleaner version later, but wanted to post this version now to spare anyone else the time of trying to figure it out from scratch.

This schematic was designed by a member of the Seymour Duncan forum named Mike S.

This particular draft shows where i "proofed" what would happen in Position 3 with the Push-Pull set to the Up position.

Again, i'll write-up and post a cleaner version later after work hours.

EDIT1:  The superswitch shown in this scheme is the modern design.  I'll leave it others to do the translation from modern to obsolete design.

EDIT2: This scheme leaves the Bridge inner coil active instead of the Bridge outer coil when the Push-Pull pot is UP.  I can fix that when I do the clean version of the drawing later.

Jack

Nov 30, 2022 0:03:27 GMT -5 gokartmozart said:

Nov 29, 2022 23:02:12 GMT -5 newey said:

Or, perhaps they just mounted the switch rotated 190° You would be able to tell if the 2nd and 4th positions were similarly reversed. You might need to do some tapping of coils to tell which ones are active.

If that's the case, by switching the 2 HB wiires, you switched one-half of the scheme back. This would explain why the "up" selections were still reversed.

Whether you can get the neck HB alone at position 5, I'm guessing it's probably possible but a deeper dive will need to be done.

The downsides that I see to the 20th anniv. wiring is that you lose the Neck and Bridge HBs together, I'd want that setting for the LP-ish vibe. You also have a redundant selection at position 3. So. if the neck HB alone could be moved, keeping the 2 HB setting and eliminating the redundancy at 3, that would be a better solution IMO.

EDIT: Forgot my manners gokartmozart . . .

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Thanks newey!

Yes, I originally thought that the switch was just rotated as well! Why would you go through the trouble of resoldering it backwards like that? However, there's just not enough leads from the DPDT or switch ground wire to spin it back around. Those solder joints on the brown wires look factory as well.



VERY good points on the redundancy of position 3 and lack of full humbucker Neck + Bridge! Based on that, I think this is now my ideal setting of how I want to rewire the switch. This would eliminate any redundancy, restore the full Neck + Bridge, AND allow 10 unique sounds.

[Deleted]

I think im missing the question here



JUST KEEP IT SIMPLE .. In Life you don't need Ticks to make yourself feel happy and everyone else to think you are doing good.... Just GOLD STARS will do

and because i like make one person cry
UP
1) Bridge South
2) Bridge South + Middle
3) Middle
4) Middle + Neck South
5) Neck South

DOWN
1) Bridge North x Bridge South
2) (Bridge North x Bridge South) + Middle
3) (Bridge North x Bridge South) + (Neck North x Neck South)
4) Middle + (Neck North x Neck South)
5) Neck North x Neck South

[sumgai]

gokartmozart,


Hi, and to The NutzHouse!


I don't post so often here now, so please excuse my tardiness. Your circuit is a challenge, to be sure, which is why I need to say that @angellahash has given you the goods. As he said, the K.I.S.S. principle works best.  Jack TriPpEr gets an honorable mention, his circuit will work, but he gets to the goal line in a different manner. Not that I disapprove or anything, but to me, it's not as clear-cut and straightforward as ang's diagram.

The main difference between the two is that Jack uses the push-pull to switch the Middle pup on or off for Pos. 3, and to turn on or off the appropriate coils of the humbuckers. In contrast, ang simply hooks up two poles of the superswitch with everything needed for one position of the push-pull, and carries that idea through for the opposing position of the p-p on the two remaining poles. Selecting which pair of superswitch poles to use is pretty intuitive, or so it seems to me.

MattB, you usually get these things on the first go, I wonder if you didn't eat your Wheaties that morning....

reTrEaD is correct when he states that if one wishes to use the original NightHawk diagram, which has Pos. 3 duplicated for Middle only, then a standard Strat switch can do the job.  Along side of the DPDT push-pull, of course.  Jack TriPpEr uses this idea as well, controlling whether the second coils of the humbuckers are shorted to ground, or allowed to contribute to the signal going out.

jhng, your diagrams are also always simple and easy to both understand and implement... I missed your contributions to this one. Are you perhaps on early holidays?


'mozart;

Your duties now are to complete the assembly as shown, then take some pictures and at least one audio clip. Post them in The Gallery (images) and Sound Samples (self explanatory).

HTH



sumgai

[Jack TriPpEr]

Dec 3, 2022 14:47:59 GMT -5 sumgai said:

gokartmozart,


Hi, and to The NutzHouse!


I don't post so often here now, so please excuse my tardiness. Your circuit is a challenge, to be sure, which is why I need to say that @angellahash has given you the goods. As he said, the K.I.S.S. principle works best.  Jack TriPpEr gets an honorable mention, his circuit will work, but he gets to the goal line in a different manner. Not that I disapprove or anything, but to me, it's not as clear-cut and straightforward as ang's diagram.

The main difference between the two is that Jack uses the push-pull to switch the Middle pup on or off for Pos. 3, and to turn on or off the appropriate coils of the humbuckers. In contrast, ang simply hooks up two poles of the superswitch with everything needed for one position of the push-pull, and carries that idea through for the opposing position of the p-p on the two remaining poles. Selecting which pair of superswitch poles to use is pretty intuitive, or so it seems to me.

MattB, you usually get these things on the first go, I wonder if you didn't eat your Wheaties that morning....

reTrEaD is correct when he states that if one wishes to use the original NightHawk diagram, which has Pos. 3 duplicated for Middle only, then a standard Strat switch can do the job.  Along side of the DPDT push-pull, of course.  Jack TriPpEr uses this idea as well, controlling whether the second coils of the humbuckers are shorted to ground, or allowed to contribute to the signal going out.

jhng, your diagrams are also always simple and easy to both understand and implement... I missed your contributions to this one. Are you perhaps on early holidays?


'mozart;

Your duties now are to complete the assembly as shown, then take some pictures and at least one audio clip. Post them in The Gallery (images) and Sound Samples (self explanatory).

HTH



sumgai

Hi sumgai,

Thanks for the kind words.

I haven't had the chance to vet Angella's diagram myself, but I did notice that the legend for her diagram states that in coilsplit mode, the Neck pickup's "South" coil is the active coil. Versus what the OP requested, which was for the inner coil to be active. i.e. North coil. Unless I missed some earlier comment in this thread about the Neck pickup in the OP's guitar being physically rotated 180 degrees by the OP so South coil is now the inner coil vs it usual placement as outer coil? Or that the Gibson neck pickups in the Nighthawk model are installed that way at the factory by default unlike most other guitars?

If the South coil is truly active in coilsplit mode in Angella's diagram, then besides the issue of coil location, there is also the downside that the combination of Middle pickup and Neck South coil won't yield hum-canceling like use of the Neck North coil would.



I'd also just like to clarify once more that the schematic I shared earlier was designed not by me but by Seymour Duncan forum member "Mike S". I don't want to take credit for someone else's hard work.

Thanks

[Jack TriPpEr]

I just finished reviewing Angella's diagram, and a concern I have is that her choice to connect the Series Link pair of wires of the Neck and Bridge humbuckers to Hot to accomplish coilsplitting (vs either shunting or grounding those wires), creates a "hanging coil" situation. The "nonactive" coil in each humbucker is getting Hot signal but the other wire of that coil is not getting grounded. By not being grounded, those two "non-active" coils could become a source of noise in the signal path.

Dec 3, 2022 19:40:40 GMT -5 Jack TriPpEr said:

Dec 3, 2022 14:47:59 GMT -5 sumgai said:

gokartmozart,


Hi, and to The NutzHouse!


I don't post so often here now, so please excuse my tardiness. Your circuit is a challenge, to be sure, which is why I need to say that @angellahash has given you the goods. As he said, the K.I.S.S. principle works best.  Jack TriPpEr gets an honorable mention, his circuit will work, but he gets to the goal line in a different manner. Not that I disapprove or anything, but to me, it's not as clear-cut and straightforward as ang's diagram.

The main difference between the two is that Jack uses the push-pull to switch the Middle pup on or off for Pos. 3, and to turn on or off the appropriate coils of the humbuckers. In contrast, ang simply hooks up two poles of the superswitch with everything needed for one position of the push-pull, and carries that idea through for the opposing position of the p-p on the two remaining poles. Selecting which pair of superswitch poles to use is pretty intuitive, or so it seems to me.

MattB, you usually get these things on the first go, I wonder if you didn't eat your Wheaties that morning....

reTrEaD is correct when he states that if one wishes to use the original NightHawk diagram, which has Pos. 3 duplicated for Middle only, then a standard Strat switch can do the job.  Along side of the DPDT push-pull, of course.  Jack TriPpEr uses this idea as well, controlling whether the second coils of the humbuckers are shorted to ground, or allowed to contribute to the signal going out.

jhng, your diagrams are also always simple and easy to both understand and implement... I missed your contributions to this one. Are you perhaps on early holidays?


'mozart;

Your duties now are to complete the assembly as shown, then take some pictures and at least one audio clip. Post them in The Gallery (images) and Sound Samples (self explanatory).

HTH



sumgai

Hi sumgai,

Thanks for the kind words.

I haven't had the chance to vet Angella's diagram myself, but I did notice that the legend for her diagram states that in coilsplit mode, the Neck pickup's "South" coil is the active coil. Versus what the OP requested, which was for the inner coil to be active. i.e. North coil. Unless I missed some earlier comment in this thread about the Neck pickup in the OP's guitar being physically rotated 180 degrees by the OP so South coil is now the inner coil vs it usual placement as outer coil? Or that the Gibson neck pickups in the Nighthawk model are installed that way at the factory by default unlike most other guitars?

If the South coil is truly active in coilsplit mode in Angella's diagram, then besides the issue of coil location, there is also the downside that the combination of Middle pickup and Neck South coil won't yield hum-canceling like use of the Neck North coil would.



I'd also just like to clarify once more that the schematic I shared earlier was designed not by me but by Seymour Duncan forum member "Mike S". I don't want to take credit for someone else's hard work.

Thanks

[Jack TriPpEr]

Dec 3, 2022 20:27:59 GMT -5 Jack TriPpEr said:

I just finished reviewing Angella's diagram, and a concern I have is that her choice to connect the Series Link pair of wires of the Neck and Bridge humbuckers to Hot to accomplish coilsplitting (vs either shunting or grounding those wires), creates a "hanging coil" situation. The "nonactive" coil in each humbucker is getting Hot signal but the other wire of that coil is not getting grounded (or shunted). So those two "non-active" coils could become a source of noise in the signal path.

Dec 3, 2022 19:40:40 GMT -5 Jack TriPpEr said:

Hi sumgai,

Thanks for the kind words.

I haven't had the chance to vet Angella's diagram myself, but I did notice that the legend for her diagram states that in coilsplit mode, the Neck pickup's "South" coil is the active coil. Versus what the OP requested, which was for the inner coil to be active. i.e. North coil. Unless I missed some earlier comment in this thread about the Neck pickup in the OP's guitar being physically rotated 180 degrees by the OP so South coil is now the inner coil vs it usual placement as outer coil? Or that the Gibson neck pickups in the Nighthawk model are installed that way at the factory by default unlike most other guitars?

If the South coil is truly active in coilsplit mode in Angella's diagram, then besides the issue of coil location, there is also the downside that the combination of Middle pickup and Neck South coil won't yield hum-canceling like use of the Neck North coil would.



I'd also just like to clarify once more that the schematic I shared earlier was designed not by me but by Seymour Duncan forum member "Mike S". I don't want to take credit for someone else's hard work.

Thanks

[newey]

sumgai,jack_TriPpEr, @angellahash, and to all and sundry hereabouts:

Nov 29, 2022 22:45:38 GMT -5 gokartmozart said:

recently got a mid-90's 3-pickup Nighthawk in a trade that has with the factory older-style EP1112 superswitch.

and:

What I would LIKE to do though is keep the factory superswitch

Now, according to kaustinwright, who started this thread wanting to convert the EP1112 to a regular superswitch, the ER1112 works like this:


Which is different than the run-of-the-mill Superswitch.

Am I wrong, or have we just suggested to gokartmozart that he wire up his EP1112 with a Superswitch diagram? Is not some translation in order?

[Deleted]

well hmm as Jack Says

I am Qualifed Electrian and Electricon Technician (just a hearing aid company also building intercom systems, current based) .. Building my own Switches and boards to work within in it
i Change other Switches and Pots to suit what i need , i do bend to the what i got to change it to what i need

so i find Jack a bit Mickey Mouse myself
Keep a circuit as simple as you can, to do what you need it to do
other wise you will get lose building it and repairing it

Make it in stages and using continuity testing to make sure its stage is hooked up (thats the beep test on some metres)


I got a bit board so i did it from a Ground Point of view

[sumgai]

newey,


Well, from the 5-piece image you show, I'd deduce that this is nothing more than a simple transposition of terminals. But I'm not so certain that it's this simple, mainly because I don't have an EP1112 in front of me to do a continuity check with a meter.

In another thread, new member Ralph posted a bit of interesting info on the NightHawk. Certainly the switch used therein was different from how the standard superswitch works, and if your image is correct, the EP1112 would also be unable to handle the tasks assigned to it.

But as to keeping the old switch versus using a new one, I'm going to get a bit defensive here and state, for the record, that using an old, tired, worn-out switch instead of brand-spanking-new one... that's just asking for tears, sooner rather than later. Need I say more?

(BTW, to tag Jack correctly, spell out his concatenated name as "jacktripper". Putting the "at each" symbol in front of that will display his screen name correctly.)

---

Jack TriPpEr,


Ah, yes, sorry 'bout that. When you mentioned "proofing the circuit for the Middle pup", I just ran with it. My bad.

But as to ang's circuit and the potential "hanging hot" issue.... Yes, I'd been a proponent of not doing that for some time, but eventually I came to "see the light", as they say. JohnH did some experiments, and found that at least for him, there was no practical reason to worry about such things. But he admits that perhaps in a different (more noisy?) environment, that might be a bigger concern. Still, in discussions both here and abroad, the overall consensus is that it's not worth the effort to prevent a small chance of noise entering the signal path. I'd append to that, it's not worth it until it is worth it. Ask pyrroz about his experiences in this regard.

(BTW, around here we try not to infer one's gender. We don's know that @angellahash is female or male, so we don't bring it up.... We don't really care, 'cause it's the contributions that count, not the gender. How can I say this? Easy - just ask the only two known ladies, who both made their gender known at the outset, frets and ssstonelover.  Do we have others here?  Could be, could be....

---

@angellahash,


This new circuit will also work, but I like your first one better. It may appear more complicated at the outset (more wires), but it's "block" approach makes it simple to analyze, and therefore simple to repair or modify. And truer words are seldom spoken - do a stage at a time, and make continuity checks along the way. Best way to avoid future problems, for sure!

---

gokartmozart,


Are you absolutely sure that you must use the old, tired, worn-out switch?   I mean, it may feel good now, but how much longer will it last, before you have to go back in and replace it?   But if so, then all you need to do is transpose the terminal numbers as appropriate, using whichever diagram appeals to you.

BTW, Eyb (of Germany) makes a series of similar switches called the Megaswitch.  Several members here have them, and express a lot of positive opinions about them.  Might be worth investigating, who knows.


HTH





sumgai

[Jack TriPpEr]

sumgai

Since gokartmozart hasn't told us if they plan to gig this guitar which would likely place it in some very noisy environments occasionally plus the earlier pic of the cavity shows that the Nighthawk cavity is completely unshielded and therefore very suspectible to noise, I believe it does no harm for me to post the cleaned up version of my/MikeS scheme in case gokartmozart prefers the reduced risk of noise this scheme provides vs the angellhash scheme with hanging coils.

Plus, there are unforeseen others who in the future might find this thread and they similarly may prefer a scheme that is less prone to noise problems in noisy environments.

To disclose once again, I have not designed this diagram based on the obsolete superswitch design present in the Nighthawk guitar, but the modern superswitc hdesign. The OP should be to do the translation based on some info mentioned earlier in this thread.

gokartmozart,

In this cleaned up version, please note that I have reconfigured how the Bridge pickup's four lead wires are connected into the circuit for the purpose of ensuring that the South coil (outer coil) is the one that remains active during coilsplit mode, since that is the coil that you requested. The configuration of how i connected the four wires is referred to as "inside out" wiring and what it does is make the South coil be first in the sequence of the two Bridge coils in terms of series signal flow. Normally the North coil is first in that series sequence. This was necessary to achieve the South coil as active during coilsplit mode.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I hope you find this helpful.

[gokartmozart]

In my original message, I mentioned that a previous owner had alterted the wiring and that the orientation of the bridge and neck unique positions was reversed. In the graphic below, I was trying to convey that I'd like to revert the wiring back to the factory selections for the "Tone Knob Up" settings. Apologies if that wasn't clear.
 

Dec 3, 2022 6:21:58 GMT -5 @angellahash said:

I think im missing the question here

[gokartmozart]

Dec 4, 2022 21:37:28 GMT -5 Jack TriPpEr said:

gokartmozart,

In this cleaned up version, please note that I have reconfigured how the Bridge pickup's four lead wires are connected into the circuit for the purpose of ensuring that the South coil (outer coil) is the one that remains active during coilsplit mode, since that is the coil that you requested. The configuration of how i connected the four wires is referred to as "inside out" wiring and what it does is make the South coil be first in the sequence of the two Bridge coils in terms of series signal flow. Normally the North coil is first in that series sequence. This was necessary to achieve the South coil as active during coilsplit mode.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I hope you find this helpful.

 Much appreciated, Jack TriPpEr! Thanks for taking the time to map that out. That's a lot easier for my feeble mind to follow. Looks like the easiest thing is going for me to to just upgrade to the newer EP1112 style Superwitch in order to get to those ideal switching positions. 

[Jack TriPpEr]

gokartmozart

Are you saying what you want for the UP position, is as if the pickups were pictured going bottom to top, instead of top to bottom like they are in the diagram?  I.e. so for the pickup that is shown as the Neck pickup's position, treat that as the Bridge pickup, and vice versa?