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Wiring diagrams for HH, 1 tone, 1 volume, 1 mini-switch configuration

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Moontalk09:
Hiya,

So I finally got around to upgrading pickups/electronics in my Lotus H2 Bullet copy. I bought the guitar for my daughter, but the stock pups are completely unusable. She made a huge progress nonetheless, so in order to motivate her and compliment her at the same time I ordered DP205 for the neck position and thinking of getting DP100 for the bridge.

What I want:
1. neck series (must have)
2. neck parallel (must have)
3. neck and bridge series (nice to have)
4. neck and bridge parallel (nice to have)
5. bridge series (must have)
6. bridge parallel (must have)
7. out of phase/coil split (provided the rest there already)

Since I don't want to make any modding to the pick-guard, these are the options:
- 3 or 5 way blade switch
- 1 tone
- 1 volume
- mini switch (currently on/on, but can be swapped for on/on/on)

Any wiring diagrams that would get me close to the promised land would be greatly appreciated :)

ziggyzipgun:
If your concerned about keeping the original pickguard intact, you could get another pickguard made however you want; I recommend Mike Quick's QuickGuards.com - just email him and let him know what you're after.  He has the most impressive selection of pickguard materials that I've seen.

Angela's Instruments sells Fender's 4-pole 5-way Super Switch for the American Double Fat Stratocaster (two humbuckers); their page also includes the wiring diagram: https://www.angela.com/fenderfivewaysuperswitch0992251000.aspx

This gives you:

1. Neck humbucker (in series)
2. Outer neck coil
3. Neck (series) and Bridge (series) humbuckers in parallel
4. Inner coils of Neck and Bridge in parallel
5. Bridge humbucker (series)

In this setup you could replace your volume and tone pots with push-pulls to have a series/parallel switch for each pickup, and use the mini-toggle as a phase switch (though I would try to use a 3-way that also moves the tone control to one pickup or the other, which would decrease the amount of phase cancellation between the two pickups, for a range of very usable sounds - I haven't personally done this with a tone pot yet, but I always try various tone capacitors on the phase switch until I find one that sounds better than fully out-of-phase).

ziggyzipgun:
There's also the EYB Megaswitches, which come in several flavors and offer even more wiring options:

Type-E Megaswitch, wiring option #1:

1. Neck humbucker
2. Neck humbucker split, neck coil
3. Bridge humbucker + neck humbucker, both split, outer coils
4. Bridge humbucker, split, bar-side coil
5. Bridge humbucker

Type-E Megaswitch, wiring option #2:

1. Neck humbucker
2. Neck humbucker split, neck coil
3. Bridge humbucker + neck humbucker, both split, inner coils
4. Bridge humbucker, split, bar-side coil
5. Bridge humbucker

Type-E Megaswitch, wiring option #3:

1. Neck humbucker
2. Neck humbucker split, neck coil
3. Bridge humbucker + neck humbucker
4. Bridge humbucker, split, bar-side coil
5. Bridge humbucker

Type-P Megaswitch (based on PRS 5-way rotary switch):

1. Neck humbucker
2. Inner coils of the humbucker parallel
3. Inner coils of humbuckers in series
4. Outer coils of the humbucker parallel
5. Humbucker pickup

All of these descriptions have been Google-translated from German, but StewMac sells 'em:
https://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Electronics/Components_and_Parts/Switches/Megaswitch.html

darkbluemurder:
Ziggy made some good suggestions.

Keep in mind that to select between series and parallel coils for a humbucker you need a DPDT switch (most push-pull pots are this way). So if you get two push-pull pots to replace your volume and tone controls you can select series or parallel for each humbucker, which will get you the 4 must have selections.

With a three way blade switch you can then have the neck and bridge pickups in parallel. You can then select
- bridge series in parallel with neck series
- bridge series in parallel with neck parallel
- bridge parallel in parallel with neck series
- bridge parallel in parallel with neck parallel

That makes it 8 sounds.

For out-of-phase you also need a DPDT-switch but that would have to be an "on-off"-type. I would only use it with the individual pickups selected for series mode as the out-of-phase combination thins out the tone already - with individual pickups in parallel it could be too much. Anyway, that would give you another 4 sounds to play with for a total of 12 sounds.

The question of such multisound arrangements is often "how many switches do I have to change to get from X to Y?" This is why I often see these wirings as provisional in order to find out what sounds are important to me and then maybe move on to a simpler wiring.

Good luck with the project
Stephan

ziggyzipgun:
Parallel out-of-phase combinations usually do sound very thin, because most guitars have very similar pickups in the neck and bridge - phase cancellation will eliminate any frequencies that are picked up the same at both points, so all you're left with is the differences in the pickup builds and locations.  Bridge pickups will get higher frequencies than the neck, so that's typically all that's left over.  However, if you roll-off or cut certain frequencies on one of the pickups, you get to keep those same frequencies from the other pickup.  I've used Deaf Eddie's "Chromacaster" and "Five-Tone-Tele" wiring mods on various guitars, and he even helped me come up with some custom configurations specifically for more usable out-of-phase tones; for a while, I had alligator clips hanging out from under the pickguard so I could try every capacitor I had lying around, but I still haven't tried just using a tone control.  In series or parallel, just about any cap will make a more usable out-of-phase sound than no cap at all, but finding the right cap can lead you to a go-to sound that you use more often than not. 

And instead of coil splits, you could use a variable split (aka "Spin-a-Split") that basically adds a volume pot to one of the coils of a humbucker, so that you can dial-in one to fatten up the split sound, and even get most or all of the humbucking functionality back.  I used 100k linear pots on each of the humbuckers in my Hagstrom Swede, and found the most useful setting to be right around 2.5 - on both, so I really could have used a dual-ganged pot that adjusted both at the same time; that guitar didn't have any out-of-phase options, so I would probably want to keep the controls separate if it did.  With the right pickups it can give you a good range of P90/Filtertron/Telecaster-type sounds.

Whether or not your daughter needs complex/variable pickup combinations, I don't know.

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